Robots with oxygen-breathing muscles, aircraft
that change the shape of their wings while in the air and other
technical advances may be on the way, thanks to a new generation of
artificial muscles. Scientists have designed the muscles to run on
fuels rather than batteries or electricity from power cords.
The new study appears in AAAS, the nonprofit science society.
While
the artificial muscles don’t look like bulging biceps or well-defined
quads, they are, nonetheless, like natural muscles in important ways:
they run on a combination of oxygen and energy-rich fuels and are
capable of doing work — such as lifting a metal weight up and down.
