480 cells laid out on a flat tissue map each accumulate molecular damage (oxidative stress, misfolded proteins) at rate k, boosted by the senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP) of nearby "zombie" cells:
dD_i/dt = k · (1 + β · S) S = senescent fraction of tissue
D_i ≥ 1 → cell i becomes senescent
A repair swarm of nanobots patrols the map with a simple seek-and-clear behaviour: idle bots wander with a bounded random walk; every 0.4 s an idle bot scans the list of senescent cells and locks onto the nearest one inside its sensor range. On arrival it resets D_i → 0 (targeted removal of misfolded proteins / induced apoptosis-and-replacement) — the mechanic the source article describes for nanobot-driven cellular repair, reproduced here exactly, just projected onto a 2D map instead of a 3D block.
Bots are not free of risk — the same immune system that would reject a poorly biocompatible nanobot clears a small fraction of the active swarm every simulated year:
P(clear bot in dt) = r_immune · dt
swarm regrows slowly toward the target size (injection/manufacturing resupply)
A second, cell-free control population is integrated in parallel with the exact same accumulation equation but zero clearance, giving a counterfactual senescent burden S_control(t), plotted live against the real tissue's health in the strip chart below the map. The "healthspan gain" readout is the extra simulated time the real swarm-protected tissue stays under an 85%-health threshold compared with that unprotected control — a toy stand-in for how senolytic and repair interventions are argued to flatten the Gompertz mortality curve in real aging biology.
- Swarm size — how many nanobots are deployed (more parallel search-and-repair capacity).
- Sensor range — how far a bot can detect a senescent cell to lock onto it.
- Damage accumulation rate — how fast cells age; a stand-in for baseline oxidative/metabolic stress.
- Immune-clearance risk — how aggressively the immune system removes the nanobots themselves.
- Inflict senescence burst — instantly pushes a patch of cells over the senescence threshold, so you can watch the swarm respond to a localized stress event.
- Drag the tissue map to pan, scroll/pinch to zoom.