This
bad beast is in the form of stingray. It is made from the heart of a rat and
its movement is controlled with the help of a blue light.
Can't
wait for the day when we can make a full bio engineered humanoid which can
walk, talk and think like us. Man technology is getting cooler day by
day. Kevin
Kit Parker first came up the idea of taking apart a rat's heart and
transforming it into a tissue-engineered stingray during his trip to the New
England Aquarium.
After
just four year, a robotic cyborg ray that swims towards the blue light is
making some wave in our boring looking Science magazine and is pushing the limits of what's possible in the design of
machines powered by living cells.
Parker directed a team of exceptionally talented scientist at Harvard
University A research team based at Harvard University's Disease Biophysics
Group, which created the translucent, penny-sized ray with a gold skeleton and
silicone fins layered with the heart muscle cells of a rat.
It's remote-controlled, guided by a blinking blue flashlight. Each burst
of blue sets off a cascade of signals through the cells, which have been
genetically-engineered to respond to light. The contraction of the tissue
creates a downward motion on the ray's body. When the tissue relaxes, the gold
skeleton recoils—moving the fin upward again in an undulating cycle that mimics
the graceful swimming of a real ray or skate.
Parker, whose research includes cardiac cell biology, launched the
project as a method for learning more about the mysteries of the human heart
and a step toward the far-off goal of building an artificial one. But the
interdisciplinary project is also sparking interest in other fields, from
marine biology to robotics.
The total cost of turning this dreamy project into a reality was much
more expensive than they previously thought. It cost them close to $1million to
complete the whole project. A mechanical engineer by training, Park had to
delve into molecular and cell biology. The team pulled experts from diverse fields,
including an ichthyologist and someone who studies fish to understand and help
replicate a ray's muscle structure and biomechanics.
Terminator inspired robots aren't new. A precursor to the stingray was a
tissue-engineered jellyfish Parker helped create in 2012, also with the aim of
understanding the muscular pumping of a heart. But one of the robotic
stingray's most intriguing contributions is that by putting in the light
control they have a way of controlling the cell without a nervous system.
Park and his colleagues built more than 200 of these tiny creatures
during years of research but they cant put them into any pipe or ocean as they
can only swim in a pool of warm liquid solution filled with sugar and salt. The
cells couldn't survive outside of a dish and weren't designed to, though Long
said it would be possible to give a similar creature a skin that wraps up the
solution and creates a kind of circulatory system. Battery power is a big
challenge for robots, especially for tiny, lightweight machines.
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This
bad beast is in the form of stingray. It is made from the heart of a rat and
its movement is controlled with the help of a blue light.
Can't
wait for the day when we can make a full bio engineered humanoid which can
walk, talk and think like us. Man technology is getting cooler day by
day. Kevin
Kit Parker first came up the idea of taking apart a rat's heart and
transforming it into a tissue-engineered stingray during his trip to the New
England Aquarium.
After
just four year, a robotic cyborg ray that swims towards the blue light is
making some wave in our boring looking Science magazine and is pushing the limits of what's possible in the design of
machines powered by living cells.
Parker directed a team of exceptionally talented scientist at Harvard
University A research team based at Harvard University's Disease Biophysics
Group, which created the translucent, penny-sized ray with a gold skeleton and
silicone fins layered with the heart muscle cells of a rat.
It's remote-controlled, guided by a blinking blue flashlight. Each burst
of blue sets off a cascade of signals through the cells, which have been
genetically-engineered to respond to light. The contraction of the tissue
creates a downward motion on the ray's body. When the tissue relaxes, the gold
skeleton recoils—moving the fin upward again in an undulating cycle that mimics
the graceful swimming of a real ray or skate.
Parker, whose research includes cardiac cell biology, launched the
project as a method for learning more about the mysteries of the human heart
and a step toward the far-off goal of building an artificial one. But the
interdisciplinary project is also sparking interest in other fields, from
marine biology to robotics.
Terminator inspired robots aren't new. A precursor to the stingray was a
tissue-engineered jellyfish Parker helped create in 2012, also with the aim of
understanding the muscular pumping of a heart. But one of the robotic
stingray's most intriguing contributions is that by putting in the light
control they have a way of controlling the cell without a nervous system.
Park and his colleagues built more than 200 of these tiny creatures
during years of research but they cant put them into any pipe or ocean as they
can only swim in a pool of warm liquid solution filled with sugar and salt. The
cells couldn't survive outside of a dish and weren't designed to, though Long
said it would be possible to give a similar creature a skin that wraps up the
solution and creates a kind of circulatory system. Battery power is a big
challenge for robots, especially for tiny, lightweight machines.
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