Scientists use living cells to create machine fish.

According to foreign media reports, U.S. engineers recently announced the creation of a new type of machine fish that uses the muscle cells of about 200,000 rats, all made of gold.
the machine fish is only 0.6 inches (16 mm) long and can swim gracefully in the water like a stingray.
engineers can control the direction and speed of the tiny machine fish by controlling the light pulse signal.
this invention is of great significance to the scientific community as a whole, as it could lead to a new scientific approach--- using tissue engineering to create bionics and materials.
the first thing that comes to mind when it comes to robots is probably a gleaming metal machine, hobbling at a pace, doing raw movements, a rickety guy.
, this time engineers developed the machine stingray, which is perfect for imitating elegant and efficient marine life groups.
even more surprising is that the machine's stingray's ability to move and receive instructions relies on the light-sensitive heart cells of large mice.
new machine stingrays, developed by research institutions such as Harvard University and Oxford University, are an attempt to build bionic robots using tissue engineering.
design of this machine stingray is based on simulations of the movement patterns of herring, including stingrays.
the fish are distinguished according to the width and length of their bodies, including the shape of fins like wings that extend from their heads.
these fish are driven by the front-to-back swings of their fins, producing high-efficiency waves that keep them elegant in the water.
inspired by this, robotics scientist Sung-Jin Park and his team designed a tiny soft-tissue robot that tested just 0.6 feet (about 16 mm) long and weighed just 0.4 ounces (about 10 grams), but maintained properties and efficiencies similar to those of real stingrays.
The machine fish they made, a fish skeleton machine with uncharged pure gold, mimics the shape of the stingray, covering its surface with a thin layer of elastic polymer, which allows the machine's stingray to swing back and forth in the water with great flexibility.
along the top of the machine stingray, scientists strategically implanted muscle cells from a number of large mice called "cardiomyocytes", using a total of about 200,000 of these large mouse muscle cells, known as "cardiomyocytes."
when these large mouse muscle cells, known as myocardial cells, are stimulated, the cells contract, causing their fins to move downwards, creating water waves to move.
also needs the help of the secondary membrane of the "cardiomyocytes" in the process by which these large mouse cells, called myocardial cells, shrink and cause the fins to move up and down.
So the scientists designed a set of pure gold-made fish skeletons that store some downward energy, which is released, but allows the fins to move upward as if they were the relaxation of cells, allowing the fins to move up and down, controlling and moving forward and backward.
same time, the muscle cells of these rats were genetically engineered to make them highly sensitive to light, allowing them to control the movement of machine stingrays through light waves.
Scientists have tested that genetically modified muscle cells that stimulate machine stingrays by asymmetric light pulse signals can control whether machine stingrays move to the left or to the right, while genetically modified muscle cells that stimulate machine stingrays with different frequencies of light pulse signals can control how quickly machine stingrays move.
above, scientists can control the machine's stingrays to move most basically across barriers.
part of the reason we make robots is to want to know better about the heart.
because many of the robot's internal structures are very similar to the heart, and he's like a muscle pump. Kevin Kit Parker,
researcher, told the Daily Mail: "Our idea is to better help us better understand the heart and heart-related diseases by looking at more natural organisms using reverse engineering techniques to create more muscle pumps.
At the same time, Parker said, "This research has also helped marine biologists understand how stingrays were built, and it has also helped robotic engineers see the possibility of using cells as bioengineering materials, which will be a huge innovation of great value and significance in the future."
" Parker explains: "Most of the teams involved in pediatric cardiology are taking a course to learn new lessons we've learned from this program that can help solve the heart problems that have been afflicting newborns.
Parker took his daughter to the aquarium, he felt the excitement of the project.
My daughter, who had always regarded the fish as a pet, tried to put her hand in the water, and the fish quickly evaded her and swam elsewhere in a very elegant and skillful motion.
" Parker said: "It was a shock to me that it was like a sunny day because we were able to build a muscle tissue like this, and it's amazing how similar it is to the heart.
" through light waves to control the machine stingray forward and backward, fast swimming and slow swimming also, this technology also shocked his daughter.
When my daughter was young, I used to take a dot on the ground with a laser pointer, and my daughter kept chasing after her to step on it, " says Parker.
" "I don't even have to accompany her, just use this laser pointer, you can let her walk safely across the aisle, because she will always chase this laser point forward, I just need to correctly control the position of the laser point."
," Parker said.
these things are happening to the robotic stingrays that we use photogenetics and bionic biology to mimic, " says Parker.
, that's what we're doing.
Harvard University researchers said Wednesday that they have developed a machine fish driven by heart muscle cells that can respond to light signals.
the machine, which is 1.6 cm long and only one-tenth the size of the smallest real hedgehog, can fan fins and follow a beam of blue light to swim around obstacles in the water. Kevin Kit Parker,
's project leader and a Harvard bioengineering scientist, said the researchers used gold to make a flexible "skeleton" with fins made of silicone on top and 200,000 mouse heart muscle cells at the top.
heart cells usually beat spontaneously, but these cells are genetically added to the seaweed and contract only when exposed to certain wavelengths of blue light.
when heart cells follow the light to tighten or relax, the machine's hedgehogs fan the fins up and down.
researchers spent three years making the first machine hedgehog, and now they can make another one in just one week.
machine hedgehogs have a life span of only 1 week, drawing energy from the glucose solution in the fish tank.
research team currently does not intend to put machine hedgehogs into commercial use, but has filed several technology patents.
hope the research will help develop artificial hearts.
source: Tencent Technology.