Artificial intelligence has demonstrated remarkable capability in predicting scientific properties, yet scientific discovery remains an inherently physical, long-horizon pursuit governed by experimental cycles. Most current computational approaches are misaligned with this reality, framing discovery as isolated, task-specific predictions rather than continuous interaction with the physical world. Here, we argue for embodied science, a paradigm that reframes scientific discovery as a closed loop tightly coupling agentic reasoning with physical execution. We propose a unified Perception-Language-Action-Discovery (PLAD) framework, wherein embodied agents perceive experimental environments, reason over scientific knowledge, execute physical interventions, and internalize outcomes to drive subsequent exploration. By grounding computational reasoning in robust physical feedback, this approach bridges the gap between digital prediction and empirical validation, offering a roadmap for autonomous discovery systems in the life and chemical sciences.
@article{arxiv.2603.19782,
title = {Embodied Science: Closing the Discovery Loop with Agentic Embodied AI},
author = {Xiang Zhuang and Chenyi Zhou and Kehua Feng and Zhihui Zhu and Yunfan Gao and Yijie Zhong and Yichi Zhang and Junjie Huang and Keyan Ding and Lei Bai and Haofen Wang and Qiang Zhang and Huajun Chen},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2603.19782},
year = {2026}
}