Part of a new wave of engineering artificial organisms (that at least appear to be emulating life perfectly), the folks at Harvard and Caltech have turned inanimate silicone and cardiac muscle cultures into a living, swimming jellyfish. Well, living only in the sense that it moves without stimuli. Either way, shit's gone mad, yo.
<blockquote><p><em>The finding serves as a proof of concept for reverse engineering a variety of muscular organs and simple life forms. It also suggests a broader definition of what counts as synthetic life in an emerging field that has primarily focused on replicating life's building blocks.
The researchers' method for building the tissue-engineered jellyfish, dubbed "Medusoid," was published in a Nature Biotechnology paper on July 22.
An expert in cell- and tissue-powered actuators, coauthor Kevin Kit Parker has previously demonstrated bioengineered constructs that can grip, pump, and even walk. The inspiration to raise the bar and mimic a jellyfish came out of his own frustration with the state of the cardiac field.
Similar to the way a human heart moves blood throughout the body, jellyfish propel themselves through the water by pumping. In figuring out how to take apart and then rebuild the primary motor function of a jellyfish, the aim was to gain new insights into how such pumps really worked.</em></p></blockquote>
"Grip, pump, and walk"? Sounds sexy.
The article continues here.
Spotted @ ScienceDaily
