Xenobots are these interesting entities created by scientists just a couple of years ago. Made out of stem cells from frogs and built according to AI-created blueprints, these can knit themselves into small spheres and move around lab dishes. But scientists found something even more interesting about xenobots a few months ago. As it turns out, they can self-replicate, and they do so by moving.
Xenobots, according to study co-author Douglas Blackiston, find loose, "sort of like robotic parts" in their environment, and they cobble them together. The result from these cobbled parts is a new generation of xenobots. Blackiston and the other researchers called this reproduction method by movement "kinematic self-replication."
Generally, the spheroid xenobots can only create one generation before they die out. Scientists, however, helped the xenobots spawn to up to four generations through the use of an AI program that predicted the optimal shape a progenitor xenobot should have — a C-shape (or a hungry Pac-Man).
Kirstin Petersen, an engineer who studies groups of robots, describes this as an "incredibly exciting breakthrough." He points out the possible use of xenobots in biomedicine and therapeutics.
(Image Credit: Douglas Blackiston and Sam Kriegman)
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