Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Xenobot
Mains level: Utility of stem cells in bio-robotics
Scientists in the US have created the world’s first “living machines” — tiny robots built from the cells of the African clawed frog that can move around on their own.
Xenobot
- Scientists have developed living robots from frogs stem cells.
- They have named this millimetre-wide robots “xenobots” — after the species of aquatic frog found across sub-Saharan Africa from Nigeria and Sudan to South Africa, Xenopus laevis.
- Scientists have repurposed living cells scraped from frog embryos and assembled them into entirely new life-forms.
- The xenobots can move toward a target, perhaps pick up a payload (like a medicine that needs to be carried to a specific place inside a patient) — and heal themselves after being cut.
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