How a slender, snake-like robot could give doctors new ways to save lives

You might call it "zoobotics." Jessica Burgner-Kahrs, the director of the Continuum Robotics Lab at U of T Mississauga, and her team are building very slender, flexible and extensible robots, a few millimeters in diameter, for use in surgery and industry. Unlike humanoid robots, so-called continuum robots feature a long, limbless body—not unlike a snake's—that allows them to access difficult-to-reach places.