Creepy, am I right? Jeez. What won’t the Japanese come out with? Like it’s not bad enough that they’re trying to replace our babies, now I have to worry about robo-worms getting all up in my business. No thank you!

From the article:

It looks like a slice of mango. It “walks” like an inchworm. But it’s not alive.

Japanese researchers used a pulsing chemical reaction to power a gelatinous robot, New Scientist magazine reports.

The scientists at the Shuji Hashimoto Laboratory at Waseda University in Tokyo are specialists in chemical robotics, which aims to build self-directed machines without metallic parts or electronics.

In this case, the chemicals were built into a flexible gel, curved to maximize tension and magnify the pulsing reaction.

When placed on a notched surface, the curved yellow object stretches, then shrinks to move forward, exactly like an inchworm.

The “walking” continues until the chemical reactions cease.