Questão 16 - Dia 1 - Unifesp 2025

  Leia o texto e examine a imagem para responder às questões de 16 a 21.

     Eat your heart out, Victor ${\mathrm{Frankenstein}}^1$! Researchers have succeeded in creating living machines made from electronic parts and living fungi. In the past, so-called biohybrid robots ― which combine living tissue with robotic materials — have generally employed animal cells, but these are hard to keep alive. Fungi, by contrast, are incredibly resilient. Their branching networks of rootlike filaments, called mycelia, which allow mushrooms to connect and communicate underground, can both sense the environment and fire off electrical signals in response — just like neurons in the human brain.
     The team behind the project cultured these filaments from the king oyster mushroom (Pleurotus eryngii) onto electrodes in a 3D-printed platform, then hooked them up to a computer interface — allowing electrical impulses from the fungi to be converted into digital commands.
     The end result was the above pictured soft, starfish-shaped walking robot, as well as another hard robot with wheels. In both cases, the team used ultraviolet light to stimulate the ${\mathrm{mycelium}}^2$, triggering electrical signals that directed the robots to walk and roll at different speeds, the researchers report in Science Robotics. Experts tell National Geographic that the advance lays the groundwork for building robust, sustainable robots. In the future, these hardy, light-activated cyborgs could be employed in harsh environments on Earth or even on missions outside our planet.

(Phie Jacobs. www.science.org, 28.08.2024. Adaptado.)

${}^1$Victor Frankenstein: young scientist and protagonist of a novel and a film, who becomes obsessed with the idea of creating life. Frankenstein constructs the Monster, a living creature with human-like appearance, from parts of deceased bodies.
${}^2$mycelium: singular form of mycelia.

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