Note that they don’t reproduce. And currently, there’s no "we" in the US… -r
> On Jan 13, 2020, at 9:42 PM, Paola Di Maio <[email protected]> wrote: > > Thanks > I have seen the news this morning but had not had the time to process this > info > I find this shocking and potentially lethal, because we dont know how the new > species will interact with natural species. Paid for by US taxpayers and > sponsored by Defense, is even more worrying. I d suggest you guys in the US > start working on bioethics legislation to keep a tab > at a minimum these things should not be released in the wild, and should be > strictly regulated, imho > PDM > > On Tue, Jan 14, 2020 at 2:41 PM Yosem Companys <[email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: > https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/jan/13/scientists-use-stem-cells-from-frogs-to-build-first-living-robots > > <https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/jan/13/scientists-use-stem-cells-from-frogs-to-build-first-living-robots> > > Researchers in the US have created the first living machines by assembling > cells from African clawed frogs into tiny robots that move around under their > own steam. “These are entirely new lifeforms. They have never before existed > on Earth,” said Michael Levin, the director of the Allen Discovery Center at > Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts. “They are living, programmable > organisms.” The robots, which are less than 1mm long, are designed by an > “evolutionary algorithm” that runs on a supercomputer. The program starts by > generating random 3D configurations of 500 to 1,000 skin and heart cells. > Each design is then tested in a virtual environment, to see, for example, how > far it moves when the heart cells are set beating. The best performers are > used to spawn more designs, which themselves are then put through their > paces. Because heart cells spontaneously contract and relax, they behave > like miniature engines that drive the robots along until their energy > reserves run out. The cells have enough fuel inside them for the robots to > survive for a week to 10 days before keeling over. The scientists waited for > the computer to churn out 100 generations before picking a handful of designs > to build in the lab. They used tweezers and cauterising tools to sculpt > early-stage skin and heart cells scraped from the embryos of African clawed > frogs, Xenopus laevis. The source of the cells led the scientists to call > their creations “xenobots”. Xenobots might be built with blood vessels, > nervous systems and sensory cells, to form rudimentary eyes. By building them > out of mammalian cells, they could live on dry land. When damaged, living > robots can heal their wounds, and once their task is done they fall apart, > just as natural organisms decay when they die. Their unique features mean > that future versions of the robots might be deployed to clean up microplastic > pollution in the oceans, locate and digest toxic materials, deliver drugs in > the body, or remove plaque from artery walls. “The aim is to understand the > software of life,” Levin said. “If you think about birth defects, cancer, > age-related diseases, all of these things could be solved if we knew how to > make biological structures, to have ultimate control over growth and form.” > The research is funded by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s > lifelong learning machines programme, which aims to recreate biological > learning processes in machines. > > -- > Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable from any major commercial > search engine. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: > https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/lt > <https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/lt>. Unsubscribe, change to digest > mode, or change password by emailing [email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>. > -- > Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable from any major commercial > search engine. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: > https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/lt > <https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/lt>. Unsubscribe, change to digest > mode, or change password by emailing [email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>.
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