Fox News anchor Bret Baier has the latest on the Murdoch Children's Research Institute's partnership with the Gladstone Institutes for the'Decoding Broken Hearts' initiative on'Special Report.' Australia's Murdoch Children's Research Institute is helping scientists use stem cell medicine and artificial intelligence to develop precision therapies for pediatric heart disease, the leading cause of death and disability in children. Around 260,000 children die from heart disease around the world each year. In the U.S., a child is born with a heart defect every 15 minutes. "We're really interested in understanding how kids develop heart disease and where we can interfere to stop it progressing," Murdoch Children's Research Institute (MCRI) Heart Disease Group Leader David Elliott said.

Within the walls of a 19th-century chapel on the outskirts of Barcelona, a heart starts to slowly contract. This is not a real heart but a virtual copy of one that still pounds inside a patient's chest. With its 100 million patches of simulated cells, the digital twin--a fully functional simulation of human anatomy-- pumps at a leisurely pace as it tests treatments, from drugs to implants. This digital twin pulses within MareNostrum, a supercomputer used by scientists to simulate features of the real world. These simulations can look just like the real thing, but they are vastly more sophisticated than Hollywood visual effects because they behave like the real thing--from how the heart moves to the charged atoms that zip in and out of its cells.

This synthetic fish is powered by human heart cells. Scientists say that they could help lead the way toward building replacement hearts from human tissue. This synthetic fish is powered by human heart cells. Scientists say that they could help lead the way toward building replacement hearts from human tissue. Scientists have built a school of robotic fish powered by human heart cells.

The world's first-ever living robots- Xenobots, were developed by a group of researchers from the University of Vermont and Tufts University, USA. These bots are named after the African clawed frog, Xenopus laevis from which their stem cells were harvested. Under one millimeter in size, these bots are self-healing and small enough to travel inside a human body. They can move forward, backward, and also spin in circles. While these Xenobots could create an evolutionary epoch, researchers believe that they also have potential risks, and experimenting with such living cells can create unforeseen consequences. The researchers from the University of Vermont and Tufts University wanted to figure out if they could take real-life cells and make them behave in a specific way, much like a traditional robot made of other materials.

Meet the xenobots: Tiny living robots have been created using cells taken from frog embryos. Each so-called xenobot is less than a millimeter across, but one can propel itself through water using two stumpy limbs, while another has a kind of pouch that it could use to carry a small load. The early research, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could help the development of useful soft robots that can heal themselves when damaged. Because they are made of living tissue, they also decay once they stop working. The researchers, from Tufts University, the University of Vermont, and the Wyss Institute at Harvard, hope such living robots could one day be used to clean up microplastics, digest toxic materials, or even deliver drugs inside our bodies (although this is obviously still all a long way off). The robots are constructed from heart cells, which spontaneously contract and relax like tiny pistons, and skin cells that provide more rigid structure.

A remarkable combination of artificial intelligence (AI) and biology has produced the world's first "living robots". This week, a research team of roboticists and scientists published their recipe for making a new lifeform called xenobots from stem cells. The term "xeno" comes from the frog cells (Xenopus laevis) used to make them. One of the researchers described the creation as "neither a traditional robot nor a known species of animal", but a "new class of artifact: a living, programmable organism". Xenobots are less than 1mm long and made of 500-1000 living cells.

A remarkable combination of artificial intelligence (AI) and biology has produced the world's first "living robots." This week, a research team of roboticists and scientists published their recipe for making a new lifeform called xenobots from stem cells. The term "xeno" comes from the frog cells (Xenopus laevis) used to make them. One of the researchers described the creation as "neither a traditional robot nor a known species of animal," but a "new class of artifact: a living, programmable organism." Xenobots are less than 1 millimeter long and made of 500-1,000 living cells.

The last time we checked in with engineering professor Kit Parker, his students had finished building a brisket-smoking robot. It's easy to see why they did that: Brisket is tasty, brisket is hard to cook, and Harvard kids are wicked smaht. His latest project is no less impressive, but it requires greater mental gymnastics to parse. Here's the easily understood cool part: A team led by Parker created artificial stingrays that use a rat's heart cells as motors, and the rays can be controlled with a blinking light. Here's another cool part that's harder to grok: One day, the team's techniques could help build artificial human organs.

Researchers at Harvard University have created a biohybrid stingray. No larger than the average coin, the ray contains both biological and artificial parts--rat heart cells grown on a silicon mold fitted over a 3D printed gold skeleton. Using a technique called optogenetics, the heart cells are genetically modified to contract when they're hit with a beam of light.

Here's a critter that would be a showstopper in your aquarium: By layering rat heart cells over a gold skeleton, scientists have built tiny swimming artificial stingrays that can be driven and guided by light. These little ray-bots, described in the journal Science, may offer insight into building soft robotics, studying the human heart -- and perhaps even building an artificial one from scratch. Senior author Kit Parker, a Harvard bioengineer, first got the idea for these tiny ray-bots when his young daughter tried to pet a stingray at an aquarium and it quickly and gracefully evaded her hand. Parker watched the rippling body, which reminded him of the stringy cord-like trabeculated muscle on the endocardial surface of the heart, and a thought struck him: He could probably build something that moved like that. "It kinda hit me like a thunderbolt," he said.