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Can someone help me understand what's going on here? The article throws around lost of nonsense, but doesn't answer the basic stuff. From https://www.pnas.org/

by lxe 5y ago

Can someone help me understand what's going on here? The article throws around lost of nonsense, but doesn't answer the basic stuff. From https://www.pnas.org/content/117/4/1853?ijkey=c53500b4c644455f52082173c471f0a2c75b7e68&keytype2=tf_ipsecsha https://www.pnas.org/content/117/4/1853?ijkey=c53500b4c64445..., they designed (via a genetic algorithm, for some reason) the cheese puffs. Then created the real cheese puffs from real frog stem cells: > Pluripotent stem cells are first harvested from blastula stage Xenopus laevis embryos, dissociated, and pooled to achieve the desired number of cells. Following an incubation period, the aggregated tissue is then manually shaped by subtraction using a combination of microsurgery forceps and a 13-μm wire tip cautery electrode, producing a biological approximation of the simulated design. From https://www.pnas.org/content/118/49/e2112672118 https://www.pnas.org/content/118/49/e2112672118, they put these hand-made cheese puffs into a sea of more frog stem cells (that naturally already form epidermis spheroids) which through their random movement clump the stem cells, helping them make little epidermis balls? I don't think this is replication. I think the little cheese balls just randomly (or maybe because they gave them cilia?) move about and clump stem cells together that naturally become epidermis balls and end up looking similar to what they designed.

margalabargala 5y ago
That was my initial impression at first, but the key piece is this quote (emphasis mine): > [...] that, a few days later, become new Xenobots that look and move just like themselves. The clumped up balls that are pushed together develop into more of the originals that function identically, not just look similar. Thus the children can create grandchildren and so on.
- lxe 5y ago
  So the stem cells somehow react to the xenobots?
  - margalabargala 5y ago
    I'm not sure exactly what you mean, but here's what's going on as I understand it: 1) The researchers compressed a group of stem cells into a xenobot 2) The xenobot is introduced into an environment with many loose stem cells 3) The xenobot, which moves of its own accord, moves around this environment and as it does so, collects and compresses loose stem cells into the shape of another xenobot 4) The newly compressed stem cells are now a new xenobot, which starts moving of its own accord and creating its own child xenobot. Goto 3.

by lxe 5y ago

margalabargala 5y ago

That was my initial impression at first, but the key piece is this quote (emphasis mine): > [...] that, a few days later, become new Xenobots that look and move just like themselves. The clumped up balls that are pushed together develop into more of the originals that function identically, not just look similar. Thus the children can create grandchildren and so on.

lxe 5y ago
So the stem cells somehow react to the xenobots?
- margalabargala 5y ago
  I'm not sure exactly what you mean, but here's what's going on as I understand it: 1) The researchers compressed a group of stem cells into a xenobot 2) The xenobot is introduced into an environment with many loose stem cells 3) The xenobot, which moves of its own accord, moves around this environment and as it does so, collects and compresses loose stem cells into the shape of another xenobot 4) The newly compressed stem cells are now a new xenobot, which starts moving of its own accord and creating its own child xenobot. Goto 3.