A robot that can shift between solid and liquid states has been filmed get out from a miniature jail cell with bars too close together to leave it to leave in solid form . The creators arrogate they were inspired bysea cuke ’ capacity to modify their tissue paper stiffness – but the scene is just a little too similar to Robert Patrick liquifying his direction through themetal infirmary barsin Terminator 2 for us to think them . We even see the famous reabsorption of thelittle bit will behind .

firmly - bodied automaton are common , even if theyhave yet to reach the capacitiesof science fabrication films . Their lenient - bodied twin can get into tight spaces , but what they can do there is limited , and they are also difficult to control .

A team led by Dr Chengfeng Pan of the Chinese University of Hong Kong has made a robot that can swop commonwealth to whichever is most needed , with a video that sums it up . The prison leakage may trigger our fright , butrobotslike these could also supply lifesaving services others can not .

“ Giving robots the ability to switch between liquid and solid commonwealth endows them with more functionality , ” Pan said in astatement .

The achievement relies on a material that can shift between solid and melted under the influence of amagneticfield , which the writer call a “ magnetoactive solid - liquid form transitional motorcar . ”

To make it , they needed a alloy that turns to liquid close to way temperature . Mercury ’s conditions to solidify are too cold , and most other metals need too much heat to liquefy . However , galliumfits the flier , with a melt point of just 29.8 ° C ( 85.6 ° F ) .

The squad added neodymium - branding iron - boron magnetized microparticles to the Ga , which Professor Carmel Majidi of Carnegie Mellon Universitysaidserves two roles . “ They make the cloth reactive to an alternate magnetized field of battle , so you may , through induction , fire up up the stuff and make the stage alteration . ” The induction warmed the Ga from 25 to 35 ° C ( 77 to 95 ° F),“But the magnetic particles also give the golem mobility and the ability to move in response to the magnetic field , ” Majidiadded .

stage - shift stuff have been made before , but needed external heat energy seed or electrical current to translate . Neither is idealistic if you want to transmit the robot somewhere heavily to extend to , such as inside the human consistency .

The paper reports that , in accession to the accomplishment in the television , their small golem can derail 21 - mm ( 0.8 - inch ) moats and climb wall when solid , but subdivide to get around object before return when liquid . “ Now , we ’re pushing this material system of rules in more hard-nosed way to clear some very specific medical and engineering problem , ” Pansaid .

Human body temperature mean a metallic element with a higher melting point than gallium will be required , and the phase variety takes longer in liquids than in air because it lose high temperature faster to the environment . Nevertheless , the potential exist to apace deliver drug to , or slay foreign object from , the belly .

Even in the solid phase , the golem only reaches 1.5 m / s ( 5.4 km / hr ) so most hoi polloi could outrun it if it turned smutty . What the paper describes as “ high load capacity ” is about 30 kg ( 66 pounds ) , which is impressive but also not very threatening – but it might be wise to prepare someliquid nitrogenormolten steelfor the future .

It ’s astonishing to think James Cameron could n’t put the liquid cyborgof his dreamsin the first film because CGIwasn’t advanced enoughback in 1984 . Now we can do it in literal life , albeit on quite a small scale .

The report is published inMatter .