A Brief History of Bioengineering
It probably wasn’t even conceivable to earlier scientists to be able to design something living. This field, bioengineering, is pretty fascinating to follow as every study is new and brings forth some novel development.
In terms of science, it is still pretty new and has been expanding in its studies. This is no clearer than with recent news.
The News about the Bioengineered Bacteria Brain
It was barely three days ago that the news of bioengineering researchers’ paper being released in the Scientific Reports made the news. The paper dealt with the study of using a bioengineered bacteria brain controlled robot to do small tasks.
Of course, as with nearly any research dealing with AI, there is the constant fear or paranoia about AI being too smart, and sci-fi films and books don’t help in alleviating those fears much. But this is a bit different.
The difference in this new robot
In building this robot, they provided in the synthetic biology and in silicon model of a microbiome to help interact with the robot system. They then worked on the communications with the robot to observe how it interacted with the synthetic bio system and the bioengineered bacteria brain.
So, for those fearing an AI uprising, you can calm down for a bit as this little guy relies solely on the programmed network it has in the body to move. To better understand how this process is working, think of how you work and your brain works.
It sends signals at the time, firing them your whole life. Instead of this system, the robot is relying on the microbiome and the signals that is passed between microorganisms. So, if the behavior or movement is not programmed in the microbiome, it wouldn’t really do that action.
What could it be used for?
The bioengineered bacteria brain controlled robot has potential in the researchers’ eyes for helping people out in a variety of things. But there are still some problems to work out in the model. No one wants a robot with a mind of its own running around like an out-of-control Wall-E. Let’s see where improvements lead us.
