The word biot, a portmanteau of "biological robot", was originally coined by Arthur C. Clarke in his 1972 novel Rendezvous with Rama. The term refers to an artificial biological organism or synthetic biological organism. Biots are different from robots and cyborgs. Robots are inorganic in nature, cyborgs are a combination of mechanical parts and organic tissues, and biots are entirely organic. Biots are also different from clones. A clone is a copy of a living creature, a biot is a constructed living creature.