Are you seeing the above-illustrated picture? This is a Xenobot, the first living ROBOT which can reproduce by replication and create its offspring. I know You are shocked. How can a robot reproduce? And if I told you that it also involves the use of ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, you will lose it.
How do Do you define something that is living? You must have read it in school some factors like growth, the subconscious mind, movement, metabolism that indicate if a substance is living or dead.
But the divisive factor is the ability to reproduce and generate offspring which is the most important one. Now how to define a robot? As per our basic understanding, a robot is something that is made by humans to act on their command when necessary.
Typically a robot is made of plastic, metal bodies or electronic components , Xenobots are developed by US scientists.
They were unveiled in 2020 and can form clusters that act together as a group, perform certain tasks and even heal themselves when put outside an unfamiliar environment In vitro. it has the power to reproduce and the process of reproduction so observed here is not seen it observed in any organism plat or animal alike.
This research was done by the collaboration of three prominent universities; the University of Vermont, Tuft’s University and Havard university’s Wyss institute that works in genetic engineering. It was funded by the defence advanced research projects agency that oversees Technolonly for military use.
Xenobots are tiny robots, nearly 0.04 inch wide clusters of cells. They are derived from stem cells, an undifferentiated and unspecialised group of cells that have the special ability of totipopotency or pluripotency which can give rise to any cells, even organs when needed.
These stem cells are isolated from the blastula of Xenopus laevis, a species of frog endemic to South Africa. The stem cells are isolated, dissociated and then incubated in completely different environments to observe their behavioural changes.
It was observed that initially, the dissociated cells formed clusters that consider 50 individual cells that kept on adding new cells up to 3000 to form a spherical mass. By the end of 3 days, these spherical clusters developed cilia, an organ for locomotion, on their surfaces and hence developed the ability to swim.
An aggregation of multiple spherical structures resulted in the formation of a swarm of 60K individual dissociated cells. It was played for cells to aggregate in this manner but the weird thing was observed when these cells acted as progenitor cells.
They steered newly formed individual cells to form a mass and become new clusters of 50 cells by pushing them in a particular direction. These guided piles further showed similar activity of forming swarms and developing new offspring.
Further experiments took place to observe a similar phenomenon. It was noted that this type of method was a new way of reproduction which is a type of Kinetic replication that takes place at a molecular level but never involved such a large number of cells.
All of these were ,happening without any genetic manipulation. To prove whether it was truly a new method of replication they removed the dissociated cells that formed the stem cells from the system. But furthest cells stem-cells, no such activities were observed.
Thit proves that those dissociated cells guided new cells to form new swarms . After several trials, it was seen that by trial 5, this was observed for development of up to maximum 2nd generations.
The process was highly specific to a particular shape of the clusters, temperature, Ph, the concentration of dissociated cells in the system, behaviour of individual cells and other factors like viscosity and geometry of the Petri dishes, provided no toxicity or contamination occurred.
The chief observation was the shape and the role it played. An AI-assisted programme was developed to assign the most effective shapes for replication to the cells from billions of shape options and thereby observe their rate of Replication.
It would have been impossible to observe such a thing manually. The AI showed a Pac-man, the cartoon, shape where the replication rate was the most active. They prefer the red Pacman cells guided the new cells into masses and this particular shape amplifies the replication process forming new Pacman like shapes.
This is a new finding where replication is observed outside of the body of an organism, this is happening when cells are placed in an unfamiliar environment unlike anything so observed before.
Though it is discovered it has no practical application as of now. It illuminates a path that is yet to be explored. It is at its most initial stage. This has sparked controversy.
The concern may be due to the involvement of AI and molecular science to create something impossible from any point of view. But in reality no such concern shpidl arise as all of these were regulated ethically and legally.
The created Xenonots are biodegradable, non-toxic and nonhazardous. Their number and growth can be easily regulated and destroyed. Although they are self-replicating, they are also sensitive to many factors.
This procedure harms no one. No-one is playing God here and no one can ever be good. This will take time but it may also solve unexplainable No one possible trouble in the future as long they are operated for everyone’s sake.
Science is all about moving forward. So those who consider it as a worthless project, should know all great discoveries start with a single step and with this science has taken another step forward into the future.
