American scientists working on micro-cell robots (+ tweet)

In April, a scientific team from the United States of America advances in using frog stem cells from the type Xenopus laevis to create xenobots, a generation of tiny robots that are able to regenerate parts of their completely damaged structures like this type of amphibian is capable of doing just that.And Tufts University reports in a press release.

These xenobots are an improved version of the robots that were first unveiled last year. Like their predecessors, new living robots can work together as a group and heal themselves.

Biologists at Tufts University and Computing Scientists at Embed a Tweet She teamed up to create the next generation of small biological robots – now faster and have a memory.https://t.co/3AHjIWaHzd

TuftsUniversity April 1, 2021

In a way, xenobots are built like traditional robots. “We only use cells and tissues rather than synthetic components to build shape and create predictable behavior,” said study co-author Doug Blackstone. “Biologically, this approach helps us understand how cells communicate as they interact with each other during development and how we can better control those interactions.” Added.

For their part, colleagues at the University of Vermont have used an evolutionary algorithm running on a supercomputer to simulate how different forms of xenobots behave and test them under hundreds of thousands of random environmental conditions. This simulation determined the best-performing designs by collecting debris within the particle field.