Tiny Robot Walks Using Rat Heart Muscle (video)

Scientists in Korea have designed a crablike robot, smaller than the thickness of a fingernail and powered by contractions of a cardiac tissue. Sukho Park of Chonnam National University and a team of researchers affixed heart tissue from a rat onto the body of the robot. When the tissue contracted, the robots six horizontally aligned legs pulled together. When the tissue relaxed, the legs drew apart. The pulses propelled the robot forward through a solution at 100 micrometers per second (about 0.0002 mile per hour).