Replicating Robots

A research team of Cornwell University has come up a new robot which replicates itself: a robot that reproduces. The robot preforms no other task except replicating itself. These robots are made up of a series of modular cubes called "molecubes" each containing the program of replication. One can read the entire article here. The site also contains a video of the replication process which can be downloaded.

Now before you get any ideas to the kind of reproduction (and the video), let me tell you that the process is entirely asexual. The robot entirely depends upon the supply of additional modules from the experimenters. The robot just adds the extra modules to itself one after the other and somewhere down the line spilts into two equal sized robots. Good enough for a start, the experiment demonstrates that mechanical self-reproduction is possible. Researchers are of the opinion that such robots can be used for work in space or in hazarous environments.
[Link via email from Nikhil]