Squishy Octobot is a Total Softy

Humans are prone to extreme views on robots. You may see them as humanity's inevitable murderers or future lovers -- and they'll be able to excel at either task now that Harvard University has given them squishy octopus bodies. Now don't get too hot and bothered as you imagine the embrace of synthetic tentacles, because the octobot in question here is pretty tiny -- scarcely the size of the memory card in your camera.

 He also doesn't really do all that much. But the little guy's still an important breakthrough: Earth's first autonomous, wireless, entirely soft and squishy robot. Inspired by the dexterous-yet-powerful bodies of real-life octopi, the team of Harvard scientists 3D printed all of the robot's functional components out of non-rigid materials. Just like its organic counterpart, the octobot lacks an endoskeleton. The subtle automaton is powered by chemical reaction. It transforms quantities of liquid hydrogen peroxide into a larger quantity of gas via a soft electronic oscillator. The gas inflates bladders in the ocotobot's arms as needed, summoning them to balloon-like life. The octobot is a proof-of-concept model.

You're not gonna catch it doing much other than kind of writhing around in the water, but the researchers hope to develop a version that can crawl, swim and interact with its environment. But the importance here goes far beyond mere robots that work like octopi. It's the sort of technology that may lead to improved biomedical devices and robotic surgery. Just imagine a synthetic octopus that slides through an incision in your abdomen into your body cavity and then carries out diagnosis or surgical repair from the inside