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Self-Replicating Robots

Researchers have designed simple robots that can make copies of themselves. Far from the vision of von Neumann machines that could mine distant planets, for instance, these stacks of magnetic cubes pivot, bend, and reassemble with new parts to form new stacks.

Guest:

Hod Lipson, assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and computing and information science, Cornell University Ithaca, N.Y.

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