Scientists create a robot that specializes in smoking, but not for fun

Heavy, repetitive, and high-speed jobs are all examples of robot strengths (even if they don't really walk). But now is the time to add another of their talents, a human ability: smoking.

Yes, researchers have created a chain-smoking robot . Not because they want to replace people in smoking. Forcing a smoking robot to help scientists at Harvard University's Wyss Institute solve the mystery of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease - a severe cough and lung infection are damaging to smokers. Perhaps this research method is much more humane than catching mice to study.

Here's how this machine works. The researchers attached 12 cigarettes to a spin like a gatling machine gun, and the robot would burn one by one by a lighter just outside the box. They then programmed the smoking magnet with the intensity and frequency to be customized at different levels.

Researchers have created a chain-smoking robot.

The smoke that the robot blows out goes into something that looks like the chip of the chip, to mimic the way people breathe. This transparent chip contains a duct with live lung cells, creating mucus and cilia (hairlike) , called cilia, to transport mucus on the surface. Connected to this duct are other pipes used to bring smoke in and out.

By attaching a chip to lung cells taken from a patient with lung disease and another chip attached to the cell from a healthy patient, the researchers can find two types of cells that react differently. How is each other with smoke.

Smoking robot to illustrate lung cell damage when exposed to cigarette smoke.

With the initial results published in an article last week showed us what technology can do for the medical field. First, by blowing smoke through chips, scientists can confirm an important point.

"First of all, we can see that the chips that come with cells from COPD patients appear larger inflammatory reactions than cells from normal people when exposed to smoke. It also explains why tobacco exposure will bring COPD patients into the emergency room, " said Donald Ingber, one of the creators of this robot and director of the Wyss Institute.

The second point is more deeply related to the real mechanism of this. Because the researchers could see right on the chip, they observed that cilia when moving in a rhythm helps to move the mucus. They realized that the smoke made these crowns change a bit, the beating was uneven like its standard speed.

Smoke causes the crowns to change a bit, the beating is uneven like its standard speed.

"Cigarette smoke basically obstructs the cleaning movement with the orientation of cilia, so they will be misaligned," Ingber said. "And this may be the reason why smokers often cough and have more mucus." Therefore, the treatment of COPD may lie in dealing with abnormal hair follicles.

The best thing about this experiment is robots. Unlike humans, they do not complain when forced to smoke such a large amount of cigarettes. So is there any other object that can replace them in this kind of experiment? Not much. Usually to do this experiment, the mice were crammed into a smoke-filled box.

Using robots is not only more humane, but also a better illustration of human reactions to smoking. Mice do not breathe out and inhale completely by the nose but we, and the rodents' immunity to humans is not the same as humans.