WHEN Hugh Herr put his robotic fish into its tank, it swam off looking
surprisingly lifelike. But a few minutes later, it was flagging—and
eventually came to a complete stop. It wasn’t faulty: it just needed a break.
The reason? Herr’s robot is the first one to be powered by real muscles.
Researchers have known for centuries that they can make muscles contract in
the lab: in 1786, Luigi Galvani discovered that electricity made a dissected
frog’s leg twitch. But until now, no one has ever tried to harness the
phenomenon to power a machine.
So Herr and his…
