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. 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. Each design is then tested in a virtual environment, to see, for example, how far it moves when the heart cells are set beating. As heart cells spontaneously contract and relax, they behave like miniature engines that drive the robots along until their energy reserves run out. They used tweezers and cauterizing tools to sculpt early-stage skin and heart cells scraped from the embryos of African clawed frogs, Xenopus laevis.

Source: Taipei Times January 15, 2020 09:08 UTC