More on living in the future

[plutherus]

This is so cool!
'Living' robots powered by muscle

Professor Carlo Montemagno, of UCLA, has made itty bitty robots using metal or plastic "skeletons" and actual living muscle to move them around.

They're absolutely alive," Professor Montemagno told BBC News. "I mean the cells actually grow, multiply and assemble - they form the structure themselves. So the device is alive."

The devices (critters?) are microscopic now. When they grow up, of course, they look like Arnold Schwarzenegger.

It doesn't say how they're powered. But, if they combine it with this technology, they can have a living, self-sustaining robot/organism/thingy. Now all they need is a way for it to reproduce itself to be a fully qualified new species.

Comments

[31seel.livejournal.com]

Just what we need, a primitive species with whom we can compete for resources. This kind of thing makes me paranoid.

[docscarabus.livejournal.com]

This is wild!

There's no picture of the fly-eating robot!

"You fool! You made a mistake in the program. Now it eats HUMANS!!!!"

[plutherus.livejournal.com]

"Be afraid. Be very afraid."

Or, if you prefer the classics: (in tiny voice) "Help me. Heeeeelp me."

[plutherus.livejournal.com]

Nah, it wouldn't really "compete" - I see it more as pets, getting whatever we give them...

I just can't wait to see PETA's reaction to them :)

[31seel.livejournal.com]

I have reservations about creating life, outside normal reproductive channels, when we have proven so incompetent at managing the life currently in existence.