U.S. scientists create self-replicating robot

This is a stunning news man!
The Drexlerian thought of nano-technology by which
robots create robot (biologically it is possible for
cells to create cells) is no longer a sci-fi stuff.

Go thru the following news story in Yahoo, dated 12
May, 2005.

The main research paper came in the latest issue of
Nature (I can't wait to see this in our library!!).

You juss go thru and i am comin from the
library,....here I go..

Self-replicating robots are no longer the stuff of
science fiction.
LONDON (Reuters)

Scientists at the Cornell University in Ithaca, New
York have created small robots that can build copies
of themselves.

Each robot consists of several 10-cm (4 inch) cubes
which have identical machinery, electromagnets to
attach and detach to each other and a computer program
for replication. The robots can bend and pick up and
stack the cubes.

"Although the machines we have created are still
simple compared with biological self-reproduction,
they demonstrate that mechanical self-reproduction is
possible and not unique to biology," Hod Lipson said
in a report in the science journal Nature on
Wednesday.

He and his team believe the design principle could be
used to make long term, self-repairing robots that
could mend themselves and be used in hazardous
situations and on space flights.

The experimental robots, which don't do anything else
except make copies of themselves, are powered through
contacts on the surface of the table and transfer data
through their faces. They self-replicate by using
additional modules placed in special "feeding
locations."

The machines duplicate themselves by bending over and
putting their top cube on the table. Then they bend
again, pick up another cube, put it on top of the
first and repeat the entire process. As the new robot
begins to take shape it helps to build itself.

"The four-module robot was able to construct a replica
in 2.5 minutes by lifting and assembling cubes from
the feeding locations," said Lipson.

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