Living robots made in a lab have found a new way to self-replicate, researchers say
Xenobots, a type of programmable organism made from frog cells, can replicate by spontaneously sweeping up loose stem cells, researchers say. This could have implications for regenerative medicine.
Scientists say they've witnessed a never-before-seen type of replication in organic robots created in the lab using frog cells. Among other things, the findings could have implications for regenerative medicine.
The discovery involves a xenobot – a simple, "programmable" organism that is created by assembling stem cells in a Petri dish — and is described by a team of researchers from Tufts University, Harvard University and the University of Vermont in a paper published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"You can think about this like using the different cells [as] building blocks like you would build
