Building blocks for machine life

Not all of these works, researchers/technologists would have thought of using in building machines that look, walk, talk, think like humans and also are more fault tolerant, heal faster, can repair themselves quickly.

Simple robot that can make copies of itself from spare parts (May 12, 2005) : These could repair themselves if parts fail, reconfigure themselves to better perform the task they have been set, or even to make extra helpers. Offspring version can make further copies. It is only a toy demonstration of the idea, but lead researcher Hod Lipson, of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, has bold plans for these intelligent modular machines. Combining this with the biology of self-repair and of replication would make huge changes to the field of robotics.

Generating artificial organs (October 28, 2003) : Tejal Desai, the 31-year-old associate professor in biomedical engineering at Boston University, was recently honoured by Popular Science magazine as one of the 10 most brilliant scientists in America for 2003. After four years of working to make cells grow on chemically modified surfaces, she developed a microscopic device, that, when implanted in diabetic rats, delivered ongoing, regular doses of insulin. It’s a hollow bit of silicon, few millimetres in size, perforated with 10-15 nanometre pores, filled with living pancreatic cells producing insulin. The holes are large enough for the insulin to diffuse out, but small enough that the pancreas cells stay inside and the rat’s immune agents don’t enter and attack the cells. The silicon means that the body cannot reject the tiny pump. As long as the body produces glucose, the cells respond with insulin. Once you have an implant that contains cells, theoretically, it can last indefinitely, acting like a bioreactor and functioning like artificial pancreas. The most important thing is to keep the cells alive inside the capsule and ensure they get enough nutrients and oxygen.