World’s First Living Robots Assembled from Frog Stem Cells

“These are entirely new lifeforms. They have never before existed on Earth,” Michael Levin, the director of the Allen Discovery Center at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts, tells The Guardian. “They are living, programmable organisms.” Levin and other researchers in the US have created the first-ever living machines: robots composed of biological tissue, assembled from African clawed frog (xenopus laevis) stem cells and designed on …

Earth’s “Deep Biosphere” Thrives Beneath Our Feet

The Deep Carbon Observatory (DCO), composed of 1,000 scientists from 52 countries, studies the underground ecosystems between Earth’s surface and its core. In a recent statement, this has been referred to as “Deep Biosphere” as a “subterranean Galapagos” potentially filled with millions of undiscovered species. Despite darkness and harsh conditions, life has been found as far as three miles below the continental subsurface and six-and-a-half miles below the ocean’s surface. The …