leonello calvetti/Alamy Our muscles get stronger when put under stress and now robots could do the same, thanks to a soft gel that becomes harder when exposed to vibration. Zhao Wang at the University of Chicago and his colleagues created the gel by embedding zinc oxide nanoparticles into a cellulose mixture. They then vibrated the material using a device designed to test car and aeroplane designs and found that the nanoparticles emitted an electrical charge, creating new links within the gel as the material turned into a polymer. The team found that the strength … Continue reading Subscribe now for unlimited access