Search research articles

ABOUT JoVE

Overview Leadership Blog JoVE Help Center

AUTHORS

Publishing Process Editorial Board Scope & Policies Peer Review FAQ Submit

LIBRARIANS

Testimonials Subscriptions Access Resources Library Advisory Board FAQ

RESEARCH

JoVE Journal Methods Collections JoVE Encyclopedia of Experiments Archive

EDUCATION

JoVE Core JoVE Business JoVE Science Education JoVE Lab Manual Faculty Resource Center Faculty Site

Terms & Conditions of Use

Related Concept Videos

Morphogenesis

Morphogenesis

Plant morphogenesis—the development of a plant’s form and structure—involves several overlapping developmental processes, including growth and cell differentiation. Precursor cells differentiate into specific cell types, which are organized into the tissues and organ systems that make up the functional plant.

Gastrulation

Gastrulation

Gastrulation establishes the three primary tissues of an embryo: the ectoderm, mesoderm, and endoderm. This developmental process relies on a series of intricate cellular movements, which in humans transforms a flat, “bilaminar disc” composed of two cell sheets into a three-tiered structure. In the resulting embryo, the endoderm serves as the bottom layer, and stacked directly above it is the intermediate mesoderm, and then the uppermost ectoderm. Respectively, these tissue strata...

Mechanism of Lamellipodia Formation

Mechanism of Lamellipodia Formation

Cells migrating in response to external stimuli form lamellipodia, which are thin membrane protrusions supported by a mesh of linked, branched, or unbranched actin filaments. These actin filaments interact with myosin motor proteins, creating the dynamic actomyosin complex within the cytoskeleton. Contractility, or the ability to generate contractile stress, is inherent to the actomyosin complex. It helps cells detect the stiffness of the surrounding ECM and exert contractile force for...

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by

Same author

Warming from cold pools: A pathway for mesoscale organization to alter Earth's radiation budget.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·2025

Same author

Long-term imaging and spatio-temporal control of living cells using targeted light based on closed-loop feedback.

Journal of micro-bio robotics·2024

Same author

A simple macro-scale artificial lateral line sensor for the detection of shed vortices.

Bioinspiration & biomimetics·2022

Same author

Clouds and Convective Self-Aggregation in a Multimodel Ensemble of Radiative-Convective Equilibrium Simulations.

Journal of advances in modeling earth systems·2020

Same author

Testing the limits of pheromone stigmergy in high-density robot swarms.

Royal Society open science·2019

Same author

Synthetic and living micropropellers for convection-enhanced nanoparticle transport.

Science advances·2019

Same journal

DNA origami snaps into place.

Science robotics·2026

Same journal

A high-endurance DNA origami snap-through switch for functional nanoscale control.

Science robotics·2026

Same journal

Learning flight navigation like a honey bee.

Science robotics·2026

Same journal

Is your robot vacuum cleaner spying on you?

Science robotics·2026

Same journal

Do people feel safe in a robot's presence?

Science robotics·2026

Same journal

Stop chasing identical outcomes in HRI replication: Learn from the differences.

Science robotics·2026

See all related articles

Search research articles

Related Experiment Video

Updated: Dec 2, 2025

Robotic Sensing and Stimuli Provision for Guided Plant Growth

Robotic Sensing and Stimuli Provision for Guided Plant Growth

Published on: July 1, 2019

Morphogenesis in robot swarms.

I Slavkov^1,2, D Carrillo-Zapata^3,4,5, N Carranza^1,2

¹Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG), Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology, Barcelona, Spain.

Science Robotics

|November 3, 2020

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Scientists engineered robot swarms to mimic biological morphogenesis, achieving self-organized shape formation. These robots create adaptable, damage-robust structures using only local interactions, paving the way for self-organizing engineering.

More Related Videos

Insect-controlled Robot: A Mobile Robot Platform to Evaluate the Odor-tracking Capability of an Insect

Insect-controlled Robot: A Mobile Robot Platform to Evaluate the Odor-tracking Capability of an Insect

Published on: December 19, 2016

Imaging and Analysis of Tissue Orientation and Growth Dynamics in the Developing Drosophila Epithelia During Pupal Stages

Imaging and Analysis of Tissue Orientation and Growth Dynamics in the Developing Drosophila Epithelia During Pupal Stages

Published on: June 2, 2020

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: Dec 2, 2025

Robotic Sensing and Stimuli Provision for Guided Plant Growth

Robotic Sensing and Stimuli Provision for Guided Plant Growth

Published on: July 1, 2019

Insect-controlled Robot: A Mobile Robot Platform to Evaluate the Odor-tracking Capability of an Insect

Insect-controlled Robot: A Mobile Robot Platform to Evaluate the Odor-tracking Capability of an Insect

Published on: December 19, 2016

Imaging and Analysis of Tissue Orientation and Growth Dynamics in the Developing Drosophila Epithelia During Pupal Stages

Imaging and Analysis of Tissue Orientation and Growth Dynamics in the Developing Drosophila Epithelia During Pupal Stages

Published on: June 2, 2020

Area of Science:

Robotics
Developmental Biology
Swarm Intelligence

Background:

Biological morphogenesis involves cell self-organization into complex structures guided by gene circuits.
Natural systems exhibit robustness and adaptability, offering principles for artificial systems.
Current robotic swarms often lack sophisticated self-organization and adaptability.

Purpose of the Study:

To demonstrate purely self-organizing behaviors for emergent morphologies in large robot swarms.
To explore principles of morphogenetic engineering for robotic applications.
To create adaptable and robust artificial structures using local interactions.

Main Methods:

Utilized large swarms of 300 real robots.
Implemented a system relying entirely on local interactions between neighboring robots.
Avoided any requirement for self-localization within the swarm.

Main Results:

Demonstrated purely self-organizing collective behaviors in robot swarms.
Achieved emergent morphologies without centralized control or self-localization.
Observed the self-construction of organic, adaptable shapes that were robust to damage.

Conclusions:

Purely self-organizing dynamics can drive emergent morphologies in robot swarms.
Local interactions are sufficient for complex collective organization in artificial systems.
This work represents a step towards self-organized morphogenetic engineering in robotics.