"Researchers have developed a new shape-shifting micro robot that may someday be able able to swim through the blood stream to deliver drugs," writes R&D Magazine.

"A team from Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth and City University of Hong Kong have mixed cardiac tissue engineering with a 3D printed wing coated with a light-sensitive gel to create a robot that can be started and stopped on command and transforms its shape when exposed to skin-penetrating near-infrared light.

"'With this technology we can create soft transformable robots with unprecedented maneuverability,' Zi Chen, an assistant professor of engineering at Thayer, said in a statement. 'Our inspiration came from transformable toys that have different configurations and functionality. The result is no toy, it may literally change people's lives.'"