How might JPL look for life on watery worlds? With the help of this slithering robot

Engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory are taking artificial intelligence to the next level -- by sending it into space disguised as a robotic snake. With the sun beating down on JPL's Mars Yard, the robot lifts its "head" off a glossy surface of faux ice to scan the world around it. It maps its surroundings, analyzes potential obstacles and chooses the safest path through a valley of fake boulders to the destination it has been instructed to reach. Once it has a plan in place, the 14-foot-long robot lowers its head, engages its 48 motors and slowly slithers forward. Its cautious movements are propelled by the clockwise or counterclockwise turns of the spiral connectors that link its 10 body segments, sending the cyborg in a specific direction.