Imagining a world where Bender the robot is made entirely out of rubber

The Harvard Gazette reports Harvard scientists have figured out how to make robots made completely out of soft materials - with even their core logic embedded in rubber, rather than microchips. They're relatively simple for now, but the researchers are looking at future applications that go beyond creating rubber octopuses that could crawl across a desert, as cool as that might be:

Soft robots can also venture where electronics struggle, such as in high-radiation fields, like those in outer space and MRI machines or produced after a nuclear malfunction. In the wake of a hurricane or flooding, a hardy soft robot could manage hazardous terrain and noxious air. “If it gets run over by a car,” Preston said, “it just keeps going, which is something we don’t have with hard robots.”