Harvard University created the Octobot, described as an “adorable step toward the robot.” Employing three-dimensional printing and silicone gel, the flexible, rubbery body has no batteries or rigid parts. Instead, chemicals course through its veins to give it power.

Bio-engineers at the same university also created a tiny stingray-inspired robot, fusing heart cells from rats to a silicone body and added a gene that reacts to blue light. They were then able to control it by using pulses of blue light. It’s not an organism – or at least they aren’t’ calling that – but it has a beating heart and it is very much living.

Meanwhile, lifelike androids are greeting shoppers in Japan, and last week it was announced that a baby with three sets of DNA was born.

Originally Broadcast On 10/05/2016