Skynet Looms: Breakthrough Artificial Muscle Can Lift 1000x Its Own Weight

Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University have created inexpensive, artificial muscles that enable robots to lift 1,000 times their weight. The project was financed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the National Science Foundation and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering. Scientists describe the soft-robotic breakthrough as a ‘fluid-driven origami inspired artificial muscle’.
Historically, robots have been made out of hard materials such as carbon-fiber or various types of metal.
In recent times, there has been a push into ‘soft robotics’, which is described as constructing robots from highly compliant materials, similar to those found in living organisms.