Harvested from African frogs, these stem cells are living robots. Named Xenobots after the Latin name of the frog, Xenopus laevis, they were created by manipulating the harvested cells using a supercomputer to reconfigure them.

In the news release from the University of Vermont back in January of last year, it describes the process by which the Xenobots were created, completely biological machines created using an evolutionary algorithm.

Experimenting with assembling and reassembling the Xenobots, hundreds of programs were tried to come up with the final design. Many of the results were abandoned while the most promising were kept and refined mimicking evolutionary paths in nature.

The press release describes what was created, however, as anything but natural stating the end product as “forms never seen in nature” made from cells from the frog’s skin and heart and trained to do tasks. These “evolved and engineered” cells are to some extent self-organizing. Some are programmed and configured to transport nano-sized objects such as small amounts of medication to be delivered to specific locations in a human body. Others can be tasked to clean up pollutants.

One of the concerns of the research team is unintended consequences. When in the last month they announced the Xenobots were capable of reproduction it brought to mind Michael Crichton’s 2002 science fiction novel, Prey. That story was about a laboratory release of artificial nanobot life that could replicate, self-organize, and take the shape of living things including people. Soon Crichton’s “Xenobots” turned into predators that consumed almost every living thing in their path including people. And because they were infused with artificial intelligence could not only form the shape of a person but act and talk like one. It was pretty creepy in “The Invasion of the Body Snatchers” kind of way.

The Xenobots created by this research team, however, we are told have only limited replication capability. They can do it once by themselves and produce offspring smaller, weaker and incapable of further reproduction. A further self-limiting control allows for this reproduction to take place in very controlled environmental conditions.

So for now we are in no danger from these tiny Frankensteins that have to date only organized themselves into cell clusters of up to 3,000 to work together on tasks. Nothing bigger, and still confined to the laboratory in which they were created. But what are the consequences should the creation exceed its creators’ control limits?

If you are a science fiction fan like me, with so many films and stories ending with a question mark, it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise that this posting ends that way as well with this question:

Once outside the petri dish or lab where they were created, could Xenobots run amok?

Our human population globally shares 4 major blood types. In some countries these types are referred to with different classifications (in Russia, for example, they are referred to as 1, 2, 3 and 4) but generally through most of the world they are defined as A, B, AB and O. Blood that is classified as A contains an antigen or protein that makes it compatible only with other people with A or AB blood types. Blood that is classified as B contains another antigen that works only with B and AB blood types. Those with AB blood contain two antigens that makes it possible only to receive blood from another with AB blood. Those with O blood have no antigen and can therefore be compatible with any other blood type. When blood isn’t properly type matched the presence of an antigen can lead to a dangerous reaction in the person receiving the blood.

Rhesus monkeys share many of our biological characteristics. The Rh protein is named after them and when present in blood is referred to as a positive, or Rh+. The absence of Rh protein is negative or Rh-. So all blood types are a combination of these four different types plus the existence or non-existence of Rhesus proteins. Hence we have A+, A-, B+, B-, AB+, AB-, O+ and O-. This has been our general understanding of the major blood groups since Karl Landsteiner, an Austrian, first made the discovery in the 1890s, and since our discovery of the Rhesus protein in the first half of the 20th century.

But the science of blood typing has led to further refinements since the mid-20th century and up until a few months ago we had identified 30 variable proteins. Some of these go by such interesting names as Duffy, Kidd, Diego and Lutheran. Now we can add two more named Langereis (Lan for short) and Junior discovered by the combined work of researchers at the Japanese Red Cross Osaka and Hokkaido Blood Centers, the University of Vermont and the French National Institute for Blood Transfusion in Paris. Right now both of these new blood group proteins are considered very rare but with their identification routine screening for the proteins can become a global standard.

Matching blood proteins is extremely important for ensuring successful organ transplants. Any one of these blood proteins in the donor could, if incompatible with the recipient, lead to organ rejection as the body automatically creates antibodies to defend against what is seen as a foreign invader.

Currently populations most susceptible can be found in Japan and among European Roma who are at higher risk because they do not have the Lan and Junior proteins. Scientists believe there are more unknown blood types, as many as 10 to 15, still to be discovered.