"Meet Xenobot, an Eerie New Kind of Programmable Organism"

 

Holden D’Avico 

Mr. Ippolito

AP Bio

3/8/21

Simon, Matt. “Meet Xenobot, an Eerie New Kind of Programmable Organism.” Wired, Conde Nast, 13 Jan. 2020, 3pm, www.wired.com/story/xenobot/.  

“Meet Xenobot, an Eerie New Kind of Programmable Organism” by Matt Simon is a very interesting article that contains groundbreaking information. Matt Simon begins by explaining what Xenobots are: they are engineered organisms that consist of skin cells and heart cells from Xenopus Laevis frogs. Tufts University developmental biophysicist Michael Levin has designed many different Xenobots in order to try to understand their complex behavior. The researchers are trying to understand how the shape of Xenobots affect their behavior and inclination to undergo certain changes or complete certain tasks. Matt Simon describes the unique behavior of Xenobots: “Slice a xenobot open and it’ll pull itself together again, à la T-1000 from Terminator 2. Two xenobots might join together and scoot around as a happy couple. A xenobot with a hole in it can pick up and carry things” (Simon 2). The scientists behind this project are using these programmable cells as models of human cells in order to better understand how cells communicate with one another to produce very complex behaviors. Lastly, Matt Simon explains that Xenobots are very significant and promising because they are living robots. Xenobots are real, living cells that can be programmed which is totally new. 

Xenobots are very significant and relevant for two main reasons. First, they are programmable which means that scientists can manipulate their composition in order to test many variables. This will help us understand how normal cells communicate and exhibit complex behavior. Second, they are the first step in creating “living robots.” A living robot would be on a whole new level compared to the robots such as AI that we have today. A cell or robot that can be programmed by scientists and can react to its environment in a natural and unique way sounds crazy but if made possible, could be applied in so many different ways. 

Overall, the article was easy to read and presented the relevant information. A strength of the article is that the author described Xenobots in a simple way. At first, I had trouble understanding Xenobots, however, the author described them well such as when he compares their behavior to something more familiar: “flick any blob onto its back and it’ll lie there like a flipped-over turtle” (Simon 1). One weakness of the article is that the author didn’t go on to explain the future of Xenobots. The author should’ve included a paragraph about how Xenbots impact the future of living and programmable robots such as how they can become more powerful than the current AI robots.