Innovation - Prime slime

Prime sline. Could the magnetic slime robot change our understanding of what robots really are. It might not be the sort of robot you have seen in sci fi movies, but this slimy robot could be very useful. Not all robots look very high tech. This ball of slime was developed by scientists at the Chinese University of Hong Kong Cuhk. Thanks to magnetic particles inside, it can be moved and controlled with a magnetic field. And because it has the consistency of custard, it can squeeze into small, hard to reach spaces as narrow as 1.5 millimeters. However, it can also grasp and carry small objects and repair broken circuits inside machines. For example, in the future, it's even possible that the magnetic slime robot could be used in human internal medicine perhaps to catch objects that people have swallowed by accident because this is a gel like material, it's very soft and there are no sharp edges. Li Zhang, a professor in the Mechanical and Automation Engineering Faculty at Cuhk told the website cnet.com, there are already elastic robots that can grasp things and fluid based robots that can squeeze into small spaces. This little slime ball combines both qualities in one.