Krima Salvi The vivacity of nature paired up with the intelligence of a machine might seem peculiar. Give it a minute and think about it. Wouldn't it be interesting to see a combination of nature and technology? It would be like a nail with metal nail polish; it would be like a tree with golden leaves. With years of experiments and knowledge, scientists at Harvard University have reached to a point where they are able to make a creature- a biobot. It is a part animal and part robot, and is currently called Ray. Ray is made from genetically modified heart cells, cardiomyocytes. It has been said, that nothing can beat the beauty of heart; it proves to be true because this beautiful organism, made from the components of heart. The elastic body, called the Elastomer body, resembles the shape of a ray, which is how it got it’s name. The skeleton is golden and shiny, but that’s the point: we care a lot about the beauty, although without mechanics, it is like cake without sugar.
So, in mechanics the function of the golden skeleton is to store the elastic energy. When light is exposed on cardiomyocytes (there are 200,000 present in the organism) they contract and the wings of the ray flaps to create electric signals. The way the cells are placed indicates the motion of the wings. The serpentine pattern of the placement of the cells gives a chance to each wing to tune in a different light pattern so that the biobot can turn. This way it moves like a robot by using electric signals. This might be used as a prop for entertainment now, but this could open doors to more efficient artificial hearts and artificial creatures. This tiny creature can become the backbone of the entire tissue engineering. However, it is difficult to take it out of the lab because this creature is too choosy about its environmental conditions and its food. It is picky like us. But soon we will be able to expand tissue engineering with the help of our talented scientists and maybe one of you will be there to give hand to those scientists.
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
NewsBreaking news about the goings-on across our campus. Check here for current events. Archives
October 2016
Categories |