Ancient Marine Organism Resurrected as Soft Robot

Researchers have recreated a 450-million-year-old extinct marine organism, known as a pleurocystid, as a soft robotic replica. The robot, made from a combination of 3D-printed elements and polymers, mimics the flexible nature of the creature's tail-like muscular stem. By studying the robot's movements, researchers hope to gain insights into how extinct organisms moved and how this contributed to the evolution of animals. This breakthrough in paleobionics opens up possibilities for replicating more extinct creatures and understanding the biomechanical factors that drove evolution.