People harbour lingering fears about the impact of robots on their jobs and welfare, but machines in the workplace have produced benefits that researchers believe are likely to continue. But for that to happen, challenges such as earning workers' trust and improving safety and human-robot interaction must be overcome. In the EU, 72% of people are scared that technology could steal their jobs. With predictions that robots and automation could replace nearly half of jobs in developed countries, the concern is understandable. Workers are worried that they will be expected to work at a quicker pace when new technology, such as robots, is put in place, says Professor Anu-Hanna Anttila, head of research at the Finnish Industrial Union in Helsinki, who has studied factory workers' attitudes towards technology in the workplace.

Along with super-human strength and the ability to look great in chrome, robots can now add another talent to their box of tricks: self-healing. Roboticists have long aimed to use soft flexible materials, but these have a propensity to break making them unfit for purpose. A new technique can create soft robots that heal themselves when things go wrong. To prove the concept, researchers at the Free University of Brussels (VUB) in Belgium created a gripper, a robot hand and an artificial muscle, all with the ability to self-heal, out of rubbery polymers that look a bit like jelly. When ripped or cut they can knit back together completely.