Engineers at MIT have added a new ability to existing flying robots – they can now glow when they flap their wings. Inspired by fireflies, this fluorescence could help with communication or tracking of the tiny, lightweight robots.

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Farmers could be spared a lot of work and expense – plus the environment could be spared a lot of harmful chemicals – if crops didn't have to be sprayed indiscriminately. The new plant-inspecting Solix robot was designed with those facts in mind.

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While scientists have already created tight-space-exploring robots based on snakes and cockroaches, rats are also highly adept at squeezing through narrow openings. They now have a robotic equivalent of their own, in the form of the SQuRo.

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Boston Dynamics’ robot dog Spot has been tasked with a new job - patrolling the ancient ruins of Pompeii. The robot will be used to inspect the site for safety issues and record structural changes over time to better manage the historic ruins.

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A thin new robot developed at the University of Leeds designed to diagnose and treat cancer takes the shape of a tentacle, which can be magnetically guided into the depths of the lungs to inspect suspicious lesions or deliver drugs.

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MIT's mini cheetah robot has reached its fastest speed yet, hitting 8.72 mph thanks to a new model-free reinforcement learning system that allows the robot to figure out on its own the best way to run and allows it to adapt to different terrain.

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Researchers at Harvard and Emory have created a biohybrid fish out of human heart cells that swims autonomously for months at a time as the cells beat. The project is a sidestep on the way to eventually growing new functional hearts for transplant.

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Most robots are designed for a specific job, and aren’t very adaptable. But a new soft robot can morph into a range of shapes for driving, flying or swimming, thanks to a rubber skin full of a metal that switches between liquid and solid forms.

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Researchers have developed a new type of artificial muscle that’s entirely made out of natural proteins. Responding to changes in its environment allows the muscle to flex on demand, which could make it useful for implants, prosthetics or robots.

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Partially due to labor shortages, autonomous lawnmowers are becoming increasingly popular. The Dexter robotic system offers an alternative to buying a whole new "smart" mower, as it can be added to existing mowers in order to make them autonomous.

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