Xenobots

What could go wrong, right?

written by Thom Garrett
edited by Danna Colman

“There is no need for alarm,” said the lead researcher at the University of Vermont, something that no one ever says if it’s true.

They are called xenobots — tiny, living, programmable robots made entirely of stem cells scraped from frog embryos. Skin cells bonded to provide structure and pulsing heart cells synchronized, resulting in motion. Tiny pink blobs swam like tadpoles in a saline solution and even hopped around on the sterile agar of petri dishes. Quite unexpectedly, the little beasties gave their creators a couple of surprises. First, they began to display the unexpected capacity to heal if cut. Second, when “programmed” to push tiny pellets, small groups of xenobots spontaneously coordinated their actions, swimming in a circle and working together to push the pellets to the center, effectively corralling them.

The scientists were understandably exuberant as they toggled together new versions of the tiny xenobots through the use of a microscope and a couple of tiny tools. They took their original designs from dozens of body plans generated by a supercomputer and then tested their efficacy with specific tasks, discarding the less able and focusing their efforts on improving the performance of the more able. It was very much…