Ever since the beginning of human civilization, we are trying to reduce manual efforts by making simple to extremely complex machines. The next step in the same process is robotics and automation. Robotics and automation is a field with abundance potential. It expands its scope from household applications to solving mysteries of the Universe to curing untreatable medical conditions.
Up until the beginning of 2020, robots of any kind are made up of non-living materials. Recently scientists from the University of Vermont & Tufts University introduced Xenobots, which have unleashed a whole new Universe for this field. Xenobots are the world’s first living and self-healing microbots. These bots are designed with the help of a computer-generated evolutionary algorithm. The living cells used for its creation are skin, heart and stem cell from the African frog embryos.
These microbots are very basic in nature made up entirely from the organic substance. They can move forward, turn around, spin in circles and flip over. They are smaller than a millimetre and can travel inside the human body. Just imagine the possibilities we will have, once scientist is able to teach xenobots to do the desired task. One day they even might be able to fight cancer cells. They will be able to clear microplastics in the oceans and lots more.
But if these bots are a life form, why we are callings them robots? This is because scientists are designing them to move or work according to their wills. Like a certain arrangement for skin and heart cells in a xenobot will make it move in a straight line. While a different arrangement of the same cells will be required to move them in circular motions.
Xenobots are positively a great step. Scientists are also calling them a brand new life form on the planet. The future is unseen but is undoubtedly full of myriad possibilities.