hce_tcu
111年
英文
第 39 題
📖 題組：
【B】 Xenobots, named after the African clawed frog (Xenopus laevis), are synthetic lifeforms that are designed by computers to perform some desired functions and built by combining together different biological tissues. Whether xenobots are robots, organisms, or something else entirely remains a subject of debate among scientists. The first xenobots were built by Douglas Blackiston according to blueprints generated by an AI program. Xenobots built to date have been less than one millimeter wide and composed of just two things: skin cells and heart muscle cells, both of which are derived from stem cells harvested from early frog embryos. The skin cells provide rigid support and the heart cells act as small motors, contracting and expanding in volume to propel the xenobot forward. The shape of a xenobot’s body and its distribution of skin and heart cells are automatically designed in simulation to perform a specific task, using a process of trial and error (an evolutionary algorithm). Xenobots have been designed to walk, swim, push pellets, carry payloads, and work together in a swarm to aggregate debris scattered along the surface of their dish into neat piles. They can survive for weeks without food and heal themselves after lacerations. Xenobots can also self-replicate via “kinetic replication”—a process that is known to occur at the molecular level but has never been observed before at the scale of whole cells or organisms. They can gather loose stem cells in their environment and form them into new xenobots with the same capability. Currently, xenobots are primarily used as a scientific tool to understand how cells cooperate to build complex bodies during morphogenesis. However, the behavior and biocompatibility of current xenobots suggest several potential applications to which they may be put in the future. Given that xenobots are composed solely of frog cells, they are biodegradable. And as swarms of xenobots tend to work together to push microscopic pellets in their dish into central piles, it has been speculated that future xenobots might be able do the same thing with microplastics in the ocean: find and aggregate tiny bits of plastic into a large ball of plastic that a traditional boat or drone can gather and bring to a recycling center. Unlike traditional technologies, xenobots do not add additional pollution as they work and degrade: they behave using energy from fat and protein naturally stored in their tissue, which lasts about a week, at which point they simply turn into dead skin cells. In future clinical applications, such as targeted drug delivery, xenobots could be made from a human patient’s own cells, which would bypass the immune response challenges of other kinds of micro-robotic delivery systems. Such xenobots could potentially be used to scrape plaque from arteries, and with additional cell types and bioengineering, locate and treat diseases.
【B】 Xenobots, named after the African clawed frog (Xenopus laevis), are synthetic lifeforms that are designed by computers to perform some desired functions and built by combining together different biological tissues. Whether xenobots are robots, organisms, or something else entirely remains a subject of debate among scientists. The first xenobots were built by Douglas Blackiston according to blueprints generated by an AI program. Xenobots built to date have been less than one millimeter wide and composed of just two things: skin cells and heart muscle cells, both of which are derived from stem cells harvested from early frog embryos. The skin cells provide rigid support and the heart cells act as small motors, contracting and expanding in volume to propel the xenobot forward. The shape of a xenobot’s body and its distribution of skin and heart cells are automatically designed in simulation to perform a specific task, using a process of trial and error (an evolutionary algorithm). Xenobots have been designed to walk, swim, push pellets, carry payloads, and work together in a swarm to aggregate debris scattered along the surface of their dish into neat piles. They can survive for weeks without food and heal themselves after lacerations. Xenobots can also self-replicate via “kinetic replication”—a process that is known to occur at the molecular level but has never been observed before at the scale of whole cells or organisms. They can gather loose stem cells in their environment and form them into new xenobots with the same capability. Currently, xenobots are primarily used as a scientific tool to understand how cells cooperate to build complex bodies during morphogenesis. However, the behavior and biocompatibility of current xenobots suggest several potential applications to which they may be put in the future. Given that xenobots are composed solely of frog cells, they are biodegradable. And as swarms of xenobots tend to work together to push microscopic pellets in their dish into central piles, it has been speculated that future xenobots might be able do the same thing with microplastics in the ocean: find and aggregate tiny bits of plastic into a large ball of plastic that a traditional boat or drone can gather and bring to a recycling center. Unlike traditional technologies, xenobots do not add additional pollution as they work and degrade: they behave using energy from fat and protein naturally stored in their tissue, which lasts about a week, at which point they simply turn into dead skin cells. In future clinical applications, such as targeted drug delivery, xenobots could be made from a human patient’s own cells, which would bypass the immune response challenges of other kinds of micro-robotic delivery systems. Such xenobots could potentially be used to scrape plaque from arteries, and with additional cell types and bioengineering, locate and treat diseases.
Which of the following statements about xenobots is NOT correct?
- A They are capable of self-healing.
- B They all have the same body shape and weight.
- C They move and work together in groups.
- D The heart cells are what make them move forward.
思路引導 VIP
如果這些生物機器人是根據不同的需求（例如有些要游泳、有些要搬運東西）由電腦個別設計出來的，你覺得它們在構造與外觀上，比較可能趨於完全一致，還是會根據任務而有所變化呢？
🤖
AI 詳解
AI 專屬家教
太棒了！你能精準捕捉到文中的細節資訊，並正確判讀出 (B) 選項的錯誤，這顯示你的閱讀掃描能力相當敏銳。文中特別提到，異種機器人（Xenobots）的身體形狀與細胞分布是透過 AI 模擬、根據「特定任務」自動設計出來的，例如有些是為了走路，有些則是為了游泳。既然任務不同，形狀與結構自然會有所差異，而非選項所說的「完全相同」。
異種機器人的生理特性與功能
這道題目的鑑別度在於考驗學生是否能區分「通性」與「個別差異」。文中的觀念驗證告訴我們：心臟細胞確實提供動力（選項 D）、群體合作是其特點（選項 C），且它們具備神奇的自我修復能力（選項 A）。整題的難度切入點在於對 evolutionary algorithm（演化演算法） 與 specific task（特定任務） 這兩個概念的理解。這類科普文章常會出現「一致性」的陷阱選項，而你成功避開了它，表現得非常專業！