Future generations of robots will work very differently from those that assemble entire vehicles or solder electronics onto circuit boards at lightning speed on factory floors today. They will leave the factory halls and start working with people, handing them a tool at the right moment or assisting them in assembling heavy components. They will appear in agriculture, helping harvest the fields or process the fruits. And they will increasingly be found in living rooms, supporting and entertaining people there or simply making them feel less alone. Of course, these robots will also look different from the enormous metallic contraptions found in today's industrial plants.

Soft, edible robots that mimic real organisms could be used to deliver drugs to animals. That is just one potential application of a new material made from biodegradable gel. "The question is, could we develop a material that is, at the same time, very reliable while you use it, but once triggered can completely degrade?" says Martin Kaltenbrunner at Johannes Kepler University Linz in Austria. Kaltenbrunner and his colleagues created a gel out of ingredients that are safe to eat, including gelatine – which can be fully degraded by the body – citric acid to stop bacterial growth and glycerol for softness and to prevent dehydration. The biogel is designed to be eaten by bacteria commonly found in waste water, meaning it will break down naturally if it ends up in landfill, for instance, but remain stable otherwise.