DARPA unveils blob robot

The idea gang at DARPA, with help from the Roomba creators at iRobot, have unveiled a proof of concept robot that appears to have no structure. The blob-like ChemBot can inflate or deflate parts of its body to change shape, passing through cracks or climbing over or squeezing through bad terrain, building rubble, etc, in ways a more conventional robot could not. It's likely years away from an operational descendant, but this is the kind of stuff DARPA is supposed to do - advance the state of the art and see what happens.