That's not a continuation to "The Terminator." It's the latest result of research among scientists at Harvard and the University of Vermont. These xenobots, named for the African frog Xenopus laevis, could move around and display collective behavior.
The researchers took stem cells from the skin of frog and put them in salt water, where they came together into balls with a covering of cilia (纤毛), which are similar to small hairs and enable the organisms to move. The scientists noticed that these organisms, xenobots, would collect any particles (粒子) placed in the dish to make piles. They started to wonder whether the tiny robots would do the same thing with individual stem cells, so they conducted a test.
Knowing that xenobots' shapes affect their behavior, the researchers tried to figure out which form would help the organism to reproduce repeatedly. They discovered that a "C" shape seemed to be the best. The C-shaped xenobots gathered individual stem cells into groups, which became xenobots of their own. This type of reproduction is based on the organisms' movement, rather than growing and then forming a new being as other animals and plants do.
Xenobots are on an unusual line between living organisms and robots. They are organisms because they are made of stem cells and can reproduce. But they are also robots because they can move on their own and perform physical labor. Although most robots are made of metal, robots are given the definition not by their material, but by what they can do.
Before now, Kriegman, a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University, said, "no one has been using living materials as self-moving, self-powered robots." The researchers hope that the xenobots can help them better understand the process of reproduction — a fundamental quality of life — and how to control it. Faced with a world full of self-reproducing problems, such as Covid-19, Kriegman said studying xenobots could lead scientists closer to solutions.
