The Xenobots were made public in a report last year, which suggested the self-repairing technology could be used to replace degradable materials such as concrete, steel, and plastic. Then, in March, it was revealed that the organisms had been improved to be able to remember their surroundings and assemble into a single swarm.
Now, an article published in the PNAS journal on Monday suggests that the Xenobots are able to self-replicate.
Joshua Bongard, one of the co-authors of the new report, claimed that “with the right design” the organisms “will spontaneously self-replicate,” and proposed that the technology could be used to tackle future pandemics and speed up vaccine production.
Sam Kriegman, a lead author of the study, described the process as an entirely new form of self-replicating, noting that “no animal or plant known to science replicates in this way.”
The xenobots were conditioned to procreate by a supercomputer which came up with just the right shape of ideal “parents” after “months” of labouring at the task, the researcher noted. Even though the design which bears some similarity to Pac-Man looked counter-intuitive and too “simple”, it proved to be extremely progenetive.
The Pac-Man shaped “parent Xenobots” ended up giving rise to not just one, but several generations, building “great-grandchildren” who, in turn, created “great-great-grandchildren,” Kriegman claimed.
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