self-healing polymer

A few years ago I stood on an amazingly picturesque hill in Costa Rica overlooking Lake Arenal. I closed my eyes, taking in the warmth of the sun. Suddenly, I felt a sharp pain. I looked down to see a virtual onslaught of red fire ants…

Unlike human joints, some of which are just badly designed, soft robotic actuators’ moving parts are fairly easily fixed. Repeated activity wears on them too. Recently a team of researchers has a created biosynthetic polymer, patterned…