Meet the Xenobot, the World’s First-Ever “Living“ Robot

These researchers paired biology with artificial intelligence to create the world’s first “living” robots. » Subscribe to Seeker! » Watch more Elements! » Visit our shop at Measuring less than a millimeter wide, these micro-machines are programmable lifeforms that researchers from the University of Vermont and Tufts University believe could one day help clean microplastics from our oceans or even repair organs inside our bodies. But what exactly is a “living” robot?! And should we expect to see them whizzing through our bloodstreams any time soon? By pairing stem cells harvested from the embryos of the African Clawed frog with a sophisticated computer algorithm, researchers generated a blueprint design that allowed the team to build the brand new form of life known as xenobots. If scaled up, xenobots could be used for regenerative medicine like repairing organs or growing body parts for transplant from the ground up.