Artificial Life Is Coming
You might have heard of these little zombie-like machines made from living frog cells. Xenobots. Now, they have a new ability. To replicate.
Image by Colin Behrens from Pixabay
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Xenobots are truly incredible undead machines made from living frog cells. They were designed by a supercomputer and are an unprecedented thing. An artificial life form.
Synthetic biologists seem to have taken a liking to xenobots and are further developing them. Experts from the University of Vermont, Tufts University, and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering upgraded xenobots by teaching them to reproduce. It is amazing to watch. The xenobots swim in a Petri-dish and gather individual cells that make up their bodies. When they gather enough a new xenobots start to grow in their “mouth”. And as the xenobots themselves are shaped like Pac-Man it looks like Pac-Man spitting out one of the dots he eats. The xenobot fetus then grows and gathers new cells to create more xenobots.
Joshua Bongard – a computer and robotics expert from the University of Vermont said that with the right design xenobots will continue to self-replicate. The researchers used AI that runs on the Deep Green supercomputer at the Vermont Advanced Computing Core to help them design the self-replicating xenobots.
The AI found the optimal shape for the xenobots that allowed them to self-replicate. The xenobots are utilizing what is known as kinematic replication that is based on the movement of objects but so far we only knew of it at a molecular level.
According to Sam Kreigman who currently works at Tufts University and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering the AI recommended Pac-Man. It is a very non-intuitive shape. While being simple, no human bio-engineer is likely to come up with it. Unless he really loves Pac-Man.
For some, xenobots are an exciting touch of the upcoming synthetic future. For others, the is a biotechnological nightmare that is now capable of self-replication. The scientists are now mostly thinking of them as an incredible model to study self-replicating systems. And that can be truly useful, especially at a time of a global pandemic. And let’s be honest, would you like to play with a zombie Pac-Man?
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Though this looks interesting, this is also a scary stuff. What if they somehow take over humanity by continuous reproduction. Just kidding :)
This is super cool. I guess we can come up with a breakthrough of understanding how the storage system in the brain works and maybe we can get a high level of storage in just nanoparticles.