Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) researchers are building swarms of tiny robots that have a built-in intelligence, allowing them to build structures, vehicles, or even larger versions of themselves. The subunit of the robot, which is being developed at MIT's Center for Bits and Atoms, is called a voxel and is capable of carrying power and data. "When we're building these structures, you have to build in intelligence," MIT Professor and CBA Director Neil Gershenfeld said in a statement. "What emerged was the idea of structural electronics -- of making voxels that transmit power and data as well as force." Each individual'voxel' is not only a building block, but is also loaded with power and data that give it the power to work with other units during assembly.

Robotic emissaries explore the universe for us. Whether traveling to our moon, to other planets, or beyond the Solar System, robots are sometimes much more useful than humans. What are future trends in robotic space exploration? To learn more about this topic, we spoke to Andrew Jones, a doctoral candidate at North Dakota State University who specializes in it. What do you think next steps are in using robots to explore the universe?

Ever want to escape the earth? There are billions of other worlds out there, and while we don't know a lot about most of them, there's a good chance at least one is better than Earth itself. With the possible exception of Mars, it's extremely unlikely humans living now will ever make it to any of those distant worlds. What might, instead, is a Von Neumann self-replicating robot probe. Von Neumann probes are not a new idea.