Team builds first living robots–that can reproduce(wyss.harvard.edu)
wyss.harvard.edu
Team builds first living robots–that can reproduce
https://wyss.harvard.edu/news/team-builds-first-living-robots-that-can-reproduce/
22 comments
Living robot is a terrible term. If I understand correctly, Xenobots are bits of organic matter that use little spaghetti legs to swim around. So the computer made one that looks like a cheese puff and somehow clumping them together is defined as reproduction? Maybe I'm missing something but it doesn't seem that exciting.
I have commented on this before so I will link it here:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27332700
For xenobots to be useful, the underlying cell behaviour needs to be better understood and controlled. Their research appears interesting if you are a computer scientist or physicist. But for practical applications and applied biotechnology what they are doing is an curious gimmick at best. If they can perfect their understanding, then they would have basically solved half the puzzle of organ engineering. But right now it is no different from black box engineering.
This is very similar to Turing's reaction-diffusion models on leopard spots — great for computer modeling and popular science magazines, not so immediately useful if your grandmother gets cancer.
I will admit it looks perfect to sell as a biotech startup to dumb SV VCs who don't do their due diligence when it comes to investing in applied science fields.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27332700
For xenobots to be useful, the underlying cell behaviour needs to be better understood and controlled. Their research appears interesting if you are a computer scientist or physicist. But for practical applications and applied biotechnology what they are doing is an curious gimmick at best. If they can perfect their understanding, then they would have basically solved half the puzzle of organ engineering. But right now it is no different from black box engineering.
This is very similar to Turing's reaction-diffusion models on leopard spots — great for computer modeling and popular science magazines, not so immediately useful if your grandmother gets cancer.
I will admit it looks perfect to sell as a biotech startup to dumb SV VCs who don't do their due diligence when it comes to investing in applied science fields.
It's taking a bunch of cells that are not a clone of itself and sticking them together to create a clone of itself. Has this been done before outside of natural reproduction?
seaknoll(1)
I found the juxtaposition of the following two quotes to be thought provoking at the very least:
> "It’s very non-intuitive. It looks very simple, but it’s not something a human engineer would come up with."
and
> These millimeter-sized living machines, entirely contained in a laboratory, easily extinguished, and vetted by federal, state and institutional ethics experts, “are not what keep me awake at night. (...)” says UVM’s Bongard. “This is an ideal system in which to study self-replicating systems. We have a moral imperative to understand the conditions under which we can control it, direct it, douse it, exaggerate it.”
> "It’s very non-intuitive. It looks very simple, but it’s not something a human engineer would come up with."
and
> These millimeter-sized living machines, entirely contained in a laboratory, easily extinguished, and vetted by federal, state and institutional ethics experts, “are not what keep me awake at night. (...)” says UVM’s Bongard. “This is an ideal system in which to study self-replicating systems. We have a moral imperative to understand the conditions under which we can control it, direct it, douse it, exaggerate it.”
Can someone help me understand what's going on here? The article throws around lost of nonsense, but doesn't answer the basic stuff.
From https://www.pnas.org/content/117/4/1853?ijkey=c53500b4c64445..., they designed (via a genetic algorithm, for some reason) the cheese puffs.
Then created the real cheese puffs from real frog stem cells:
> Pluripotent stem cells are first harvested from blastula stage Xenopus laevis embryos, dissociated, and pooled to achieve the desired number of cells. Following an incubation period, the aggregated tissue is then manually shaped by subtraction using a combination of microsurgery forceps and a 13-μm wire tip cautery electrode, producing a biological approximation of the simulated design.
From https://www.pnas.org/content/118/49/e2112672118, they put these hand-made cheese puffs into a sea of more frog stem cells (that naturally already form epidermis spheroids) which through their random movement clump the stem cells, helping them make little epidermis balls?
I don't think this is replication. I think the little cheese balls just randomly (or maybe because they gave them cilia?) move about and clump stem cells together that naturally become epidermis balls and end up looking similar to what they designed.
From https://www.pnas.org/content/117/4/1853?ijkey=c53500b4c64445..., they designed (via a genetic algorithm, for some reason) the cheese puffs.
Then created the real cheese puffs from real frog stem cells:
> Pluripotent stem cells are first harvested from blastula stage Xenopus laevis embryos, dissociated, and pooled to achieve the desired number of cells. Following an incubation period, the aggregated tissue is then manually shaped by subtraction using a combination of microsurgery forceps and a 13-μm wire tip cautery electrode, producing a biological approximation of the simulated design.
From https://www.pnas.org/content/118/49/e2112672118, they put these hand-made cheese puffs into a sea of more frog stem cells (that naturally already form epidermis spheroids) which through their random movement clump the stem cells, helping them make little epidermis balls?
I don't think this is replication. I think the little cheese balls just randomly (or maybe because they gave them cilia?) move about and clump stem cells together that naturally become epidermis balls and end up looking similar to what they designed.
That was my initial impression at first, but the key piece is this quote (emphasis mine):
> [...] that, a few days later, become new Xenobots that look and move just like themselves.
The clumped up balls that are pushed together develop into more of the originals that function identically, not just look similar. Thus the children can create grandchildren and so on.
> [...] that, a few days later, become new Xenobots that look and move just like themselves.
The clumped up balls that are pushed together develop into more of the originals that function identically, not just look similar. Thus the children can create grandchildren and so on.
So the stem cells somehow react to the xenobots?
I'm not sure exactly what you mean, but here's what's going on as I understand it:
1) The researchers compressed a group of stem cells into a xenobot
2) The xenobot is introduced into an environment with many loose stem cells
3) The xenobot, which moves of its own accord, moves around this environment and as it does so, collects and compresses loose stem cells into the shape of another xenobot
4) The newly compressed stem cells are now a new xenobot, which starts moving of its own accord and creating its own child xenobot. Goto 3.
1) The researchers compressed a group of stem cells into a xenobot
2) The xenobot is introduced into an environment with many loose stem cells
3) The xenobot, which moves of its own accord, moves around this environment and as it does so, collects and compresses loose stem cells into the shape of another xenobot
4) The newly compressed stem cells are now a new xenobot, which starts moving of its own accord and creating its own child xenobot. Goto 3.
How long would it take before military industrial complex creates Battletoads from this?
At about the same time as when growing organs in test tubes becomes viable and restaurant grade synthetic wagyu steaks grown from stem cells become reality.
To be truly robust they should be able to draw from pretty much any resource in the environment as feedstock for their growth and reproduction.
The images also makes them look a little grey and gooey, so the public will probably latch onto something like "grey goo" as a nickname. What could go wrong?
The images also makes them look a little grey and gooey, so the public will probably latch onto something like "grey goo" as a nickname. What could go wrong?
[deleted]
Looks like there's a (slightly, at least) less sensational article on this at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29386102.
I immediately thought of gray goo, of course. What’s to stop that from happening here?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray_goo
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray_goo
marianaaaaa(1)