Skip to main content

Scientists Discover Way to Send Information into Black Holes Without Using Energy

3 comments

Scientists Create AI-Evolved Robots That Can Survive Being Cut in Half

Engineers at Northwestern University have developed a groundbreaking new type of robot that can adapt, survive damage and keep moving even in harsh outdoor environments. These robots, called “legged metamachines,” represent a major step forward in robotics because they are not fixed machines with rigid bodies. Instead, they are made from small robotic modules that can connect, disconnect and reorganize themselves to perform different tasks.

The research describing these innovative robots was published in the prestigious journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, highlighting their scientific importance.

Unlike traditional robots that stop working when a single part fails, metamachines can survive serious damage. If a piece breaks off, the remaining parts keep moving, while the broken module can still function independently and even rejoin the group later. This remarkable resilience makes these robots more similar to living organisms than machines.

A Robot Built From Many Smaller Robots

The key idea behind metamachines is modularity. Instead of building one large robot with a fixed shape, the engineers created many small robot units that can snap together like Lego blocks.

Each module is a fully functional robot with its own:

  • Motor for movement

  • Battery for power

  • Computer for control

Because every module is independent, it can move on its own. A single module can roll, turn and even jump.

However, the real power appears when multiple modules combine together. Once connected, they form a larger robot capable of complex and athletic movements.

For example, depending on how the modules connect, the metamachine can move in different ways:

  • Undulating like a seal

  • Bounding like a lizard

  • Springing forward like a kangaroo

These unusual movements give the robots incredible flexibility and agility when traveling across difficult terrain.

AI Designed Strange New Robot Bodies

Instead of designing the robots themselves, the researchers used artificial intelligence (AI) to create the most effective robot shapes.

The project was led by roboticist Sam Kriegman, who wanted to explore how machines could evolve new body designs rather than copying animals or traditional robot structures.

The team used an evolutionary algorithm, a type of AI that mimics the process of natural evolution.

Here is how it worked:

  1. The computer started with simple building blocks — the robot modules.

  2. It combined the modules into many different body shapes.

  3. Each design was tested in a simulated environment.

  4. The best-performing designs were kept.

  5. Weak designs were removed.

  6. The best robots were “mutated” or combined to create new designs.

This process is similar to natural selection, where organisms evolve over generations to survive better in their environment.

But instead of taking millions of years, the computer simulation performed this process in seconds.

As a result, the AI created many strange robot body shapes that human engineers would probably never imagine.

Some of these new designs turned out to be surprisingly efficient and agile.

A Simple Design With Powerful Capabilities

Each robot module has a simple mechanical structure. It consists of two rod-like legs connected by a central spherical body.

Inside that sphere are all the essential components needed for the robot to function:

  • A circuit board (its “nervous system”)

  • A battery (its “metabolism”)

  • A motor (its “muscle”)

Although each module can rotate only around a single axis, combining several modules allows the entire robot to perform highly dynamic movements.

This simplicity makes the system easier to build, repair and expand.

According to Kriegman, even though the modules are mechanically simple, they are surprisingly intelligent and athletic when working together.

Surviving Damage and Recovering From Injury

One of the most impressive features of metamachines is their ability to survive serious damage.

Traditional robots are fragile systems. If one critical part breaks, the entire machine often stops working.

But metamachines are different.

Because the robot is made of multiple independent modules, damage does not stop the system completely.

For example:

  • If one leg breaks off, the remaining modules adjust and keep moving.

  • The detached leg can still roll or crawl on its own.

  • Later, the module may reconnect with the rest of the robot.

Even more impressively, the robot can survive being cut into multiple pieces. Each piece becomes a separate robot capable of movement and computation.

This makes metamachines extremely resilient — a crucial ability for robots operating in unpredictable environments.

Designed to Move in the Real World

Many robots perform well in controlled laboratory environments but struggle outside.

To test whether metamachines could operate in real conditions, the research team assembled several evolved robot designs with three, four and five legs.

They then tested them outdoors.

The robots successfully navigated many challenging surfaces, including:

  • Gravel

  • Grass

  • Tree roots

  • Sand

  • Mud

  • Leaves

  • Uneven brick paths

During these tests, the robots demonstrated impressive agility.

They could:

  • Flip themselves upright when overturned

  • Jump over obstacles

  • Spin in the air

  • Continue moving after losing a leg

Most importantly, they did all of this without complicated retraining or programming.

Once assembled, the robots immediately began moving and adapting to the environment.

From Computer Evolution to Real Machines

This research builds on earlier work from Kriegman’s lab, where scientists used AI to evolve simple walking robots in computer simulations.

Those early robots were able to walk across flat surfaces but had limited abilities.

However, they demonstrated an important concept: AI can design working robots automatically.

The new metamachines go much further.

They can sense their surroundings, coordinate movements between modules and adapt to changing conditions.

This progression shows how quickly AI-driven design is advancing robotics.

By compressing billions of years of natural evolution into computer simulations, scientists can now discover entirely new machine designs.

A New Future for Robotics

The development of metamachines could transform the future of robotics.

Most current robots are designed for specific tasks and environments. They are often fragile and difficult to repair.

Metamachines offer a completely different approach.

Instead of building one fixed robot, engineers could create a collection of small robotic modules that combine to perform different jobs.

Such robots could be extremely useful in many fields, including:

  • Disaster search and rescue

  • Planetary exploration

  • Military operations

  • Environmental monitoring

  • Construction in dangerous locations

Because the robots can reconfigure themselves and survive damage, they would be ideal for unpredictable and hazardous environments.

Robots That Behave More Like Living Organisms

Perhaps the most exciting aspect of metamachines is how closely they resemble living systems.

Like biological organisms, they can:

  • Adapt their body structure

  • Survive injury

  • Continue functioning even when damaged

According to Kriegman, this research represents the first robots that evolved inside a computer and then successfully operated outdoors.

Instead of being fragile tools, future robots may behave more like resilient, evolving lifeforms.

As artificial intelligence continues to improve, machines may become increasingly capable of designing themselves and adapting to the world around them.

The legged metamachine is an early glimpse of that future — a world where robots are not just programmed machines, but dynamic systems capable of growth, recovery and evolution.

Reference: C. Yu, D. Matthews, J. Wang, J. Gu, D. Blackiston, M. Rubenstein, & S. Kriegman, Agile legged locomotion in reconfigurable modular robots, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 123 (10) e2519129123, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2519129123 (2026).

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular

Scientists Discover Way to Send Information into Black Holes Without Using Energy

For years, scientists believed that adding even one qubit (a unit of quantum information) to a black hole needed energy. This was based on the idea that a black hole’s entropy must increase with more information, which means it must gain energy. But a new study by Jonah Kudler-Flam and Geoff Penington changes that thinking. They found that quantum information can be teleported into a black hole without adding energy or increasing entropy . This works through a process called black hole decoherence , where “soft” radiation — very low-energy signals — carry information into the black hole. In their method, the qubit enters the black hole while a new pair of entangled particles (like Hawking radiation) is created. This keeps the total information balanced, so there's no violation of the laws of physics. The energy cost only shows up when information is erased from the outside — these are called zerobits . According to Landauer’s principle, erasing information always needs energy. But ...
3 comments
Read more

Black Holes That Never Dies

Black holes are powerful objects in space with gravity so strong that nothing can escape them. In the 1970s, Stephen Hawking showed that black holes can slowly lose energy by giving off tiny particles. This process is called Hawking radiation . Over time, the black hole gets smaller and hotter, and in the end, it disappears completely. But new research by Menezes and his team shows something different. Using a theory called Loop Quantum Gravity (LQG) , they studied black holes with quantum corrections. In their model, the black hole does not vanish completely. Instead, it stops shrinking when it reaches a very small size. This leftover is called a black hole remnant . They also studied something called grey-body factors , which affect how much energy escapes from a black hole. Their findings show that the black hole cools down and stops losing mass once it reaches a minimum mass . This new model removes the idea of a “singularity” at the center of the black hole and gives us a better ...
Post a Comment
Read more

How Planetary Movements Might Explain Sunspot Cycles and Solar Phenomena

Sunspots, dark patches on the Sun's surface, follow a cycle of increasing and decreasing activity every 11 years. For years, scientists have relied on the dynamo model to explain this cycle. According to this model, the Sun's magnetic field is generated by the movement of plasma and the Sun's rotation. However, this model does not fully explain why the sunspot cycle is sometimes unpredictable. Lauri Jetsu, a researcher, has proposed a new approach. Jetsu’s analysis, using a method called the Discrete Chi-square Method (DCM), suggests that planetary movements, especially those of Earth, Jupiter, and Mercury, play a key role in driving the sunspot cycle. His theory focuses on Flux Transfer Events (FTEs), where the magnetic fields of these planets interact with the Sun’s magnetic field. These interactions could create the sunspots and explain other solar phenomena like the Sun’s magnetic polarity reversing every 11 years. The Sun, our closest star, has been a subject of scient...
Post a Comment
Read more