<div dir="ltr">As with any use of the term 'first' in science reporting, this is a little dubious (and the researchers involved are probably aware of the prior art in this domain).<div><br></div><div>Some previous work:</div><div><a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/biomedical/bionics/rat-brain-robot-grows-up">https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/biomedical/bionics/rat-brain-robot-grows-up</a><br></div><div><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090530045152/http://radio.weblogs.com:80/0105910/2002/12/19.html">https://web.archive.org/web/20090530045152/http://radio.weblogs.com:80/0105910/2002/12/19.html</a><br></div><div><a href="https://dark-mountain.net/theoteknosis-part-i-of-pond-brains-and-humanity-2-0/">https://dark-mountain.net/theoteknosis-part-i-of-pond-brains-and-humanity-2-0/</a><br></div><div><br></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Tue, Jan 14, 2020 at 1:26 PM Rand Strauss <<a href="mailto:Rand@peoplecount.org">Rand@peoplecount.org</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div style="overflow-wrap: break-word;">Note that they don’t reproduce.<div>And currently, there’s no "we" in the US…</div><div>-r<br><div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div>On Jan 13, 2020, at 9:42 PM, Paola Di Maio <<a href="mailto:paola.dimaio@gmail.com" target="_blank">paola.dimaio@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</div><br><div><div dir="ltr" style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:normal;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;text-decoration:none">Thanks<div>I have seen the news this morning but had not had the time to process this info</div><div>I find this shocking and potentially lethal, because we dont know how the new<div>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</div><div>at a minimum these things should not be released in the wild,  and should be strictly regulated, imho</div></div><div>PDM</div></div><br style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:normal;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;text-decoration:none"><div class="gmail_quote" style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:normal;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;text-decoration:none"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Tue, Jan 14, 2020 at 2:41 PM Yosem Companys <<a href="mailto:ycompanys@gmail.com" target="_blank">ycompanys@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><u></u><div style="word-break:break-word"><table lang="container" dir="ltr" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" valign="top" style="width:654.719px"><tbody><tr><td valign="top" style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif"><div dir="ltr"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/jan/13/scientists-use-stem-cells-from-frogs-to-build-first-living-robots" target="_blank">https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/jan/13/scientists-use-stem-cells-from-frogs-to-build-first-living-robots</a><br><br>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.<br></div><img align="left" width="0" height="0" alt="" style="border: 0px; width: 0px; height: 0px;"></td></tr></tbody></table></div>--<span> </span><br>Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable from any major commercial search engine. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated:<span> </span><a href="https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/lt" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/lt</a>. Unsubscribe, change to digest mode, or change password by emailing<span> </span><a href="mailto:lt-owner@lists.liberationtech.org" target="_blank">lt-owner@lists.liberationtech.org</a>.</blockquote></div><span style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:normal;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;text-decoration:none;float:none;display:inline">--<span> </span></span><br style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:normal;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;text-decoration:none"><span style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:normal;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;text-decoration:none;float:none;display:inline">Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable from any major commercial search engine. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated:<span> </span></span><a href="https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/lt" style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:normal;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px" target="_blank">https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/lt</a><span style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:normal;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;text-decoration:none;float:none;display:inline">. Unsubscribe, change to digest mode, or change password by emailing<span> </span></span><a href="mailto:lt-owner@lists.liberationtech.org" style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:normal;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px" target="_blank">lt-owner@lists.liberationtech.org</a><span style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:normal;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;text-decoration:none;float:none;display:inline">.</span></div></blockquote></div><br></div></div>-- <br>
Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable from any major commercial search engine. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: <a href="https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/lt" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/lt</a>. Unsubscribe, change to digest mode, or change password by emailing <a href="mailto:lt-owner@lists.liberationtech.org" target="_blank">lt-owner@lists.liberationtech.org</a>.</blockquote></div>