ROBOTICS: Soft Power

Constructed from delicate, flexible and life-like materials, soft robots have the potential to improve on their clunky, metal-bodied predecessors. Such machines could more nimbly explore other planets, gently collect organisms from the ocean depths and even lend surgeons a hand. But stubborn design challenges have long held them back from making it out of the lab and into our lives. Now a new generation of soft robots is navigating, growing and self-repairing its way to meeting researchers' lofty expectations.