Scientists Attach Living Lab-Grown Skin to a Robot’s Face and It Looks Like It’s Yearning for the Sweet Release of Death
Please no.
Face/Off
Remember that movie where a killer robot is disguised as a human using “living tissue” on its “metal endoskeleton”?
Lest you interpret this as a warning, scientists at the University of Tokyo used Torment Nexus by growing living skin in a lab and attaching it to a robotic face, so it could create rudimentary facial expressions.
It would be one thing if the resulting creation looked like a skincare YouTuber. But instead, we think it’s fair to say that this thing seems to yearn for the sweet release of death. No, seriously, look at that face.
Skincare routine
The team behind the work says it could lead to robots with new abilities such as self-healing and an advanced sense of touch – as well as, they say, robots that are more human-like , although we’ll withhold judgment on the latter until we’ve seen evidence other than the above.
“Manipulating soft, moist biological tissues during the development process is much more difficult than people outside the field might think,” said Professor Shoji Takeuchi, lead researcher behind the work at the University of Tokyo, in a press release about this work. “For example, if sterility is not maintained, bacteria can enter and tissue will die. However, now that we can do this, living skin can bring a whole host of new capabilities to robots. Self-healing is a big problem – some chemical cellulose materials can be made to heal themselves, but they require triggers like heat, pressure, or other signals, and they also don’t proliferate like cells repair minor lacerations like ours does, and nerves and other skin organs can be added for use in sensing and so on.
It appears, however, that they are working toward the goal of a more human appearance, which sounds like a provocative vision of true cyborg robots that combine the strengths of machine and biology.
“In this study, we managed to reproduce human appearance to a certain extent by creating a face with the same surface material and structure as humans,” Takeuchi said. “Additionally, through this research, we identified new challenges, such as the need for superficial wrinkles and thicker epidermis to achieve a more human appearance. We believe that creating thicker, more realistic can be achieved by incorporating sweat glands, sebaceous glands, pores, blood vessels, fat and nerves. Of course, movement is also a crucial factor, not just the material. to create human expressions by integrating sophisticated actuators, or muscles, inside the robot themselves, perceiving their surroundings more accurately and performing tasks with human dexterity is incredibly motivating.
Learn more about robots: Video shows Chinese robot dog equipped with rifle opening fire on targets
News Source : futurism.com
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