Scientists Build Living Robots With Nervous Systems
Elie Dolgin
Engineers have long tried to mimic life. They’ve built machine learning algorithms modeled after the human brain , designed machines that walk like dogs or fly like insects , and taught robots to adapt, however clumsily , to the world around them. Now they are skipping imitation altogether. Instead of taking inspiration from biology, they are building robots out of it: fashioning tiny, free-swimming assemblages of living cells that organize into self-directed systems, complete with neurons that