Living robots made in a lab have found a new way to self-replicate, researchers say

Scientists say they've witnessed a never-before-seen type of replication in organic robots created in the lab using frog cells. Among other things, the findings could have implications for regenerative medicine.

The discovery involves a xenobot – a simple, "programmable" organism that is created by assembling stem cells in a Petri dish — and is described by a team of researchers from Tufts University, Harvard University and the University of Vermont in a paper published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"You can think about this like using the...