00:03This butterfly is made of fabric, but biomechanical engineers from the University of New South Wales
00:09in Australia are enhancing it. This is what they're calling a smart textile, and it mimics
00:14human muscles. The fabric is knitted or woven, and can constrict and extend just like muscle
00:19fibers. But even more impressive, it can move objects up to 192 times its own weight. The
00:25director of the medical robotics lab says this is the first step in making a suit, akin to Iron Man
00:30or Spider-Man. Imagine wearing a shirt or pair of pants made from this material, effectively an
00:34exoskeleton able to assist you in lifting heavy objects, or for biomedical applications, where a
00:39muscular fabric compression suit can massage body parts for relief, or for better blood circulation.
00:44The team also says the material could be used to build soft robots, able to adapt on the fly to
00:49whatever situation they're needed for, like search and rescue and collapsed buildings or elsewhere.
00:53But perhaps the most important thing? They say the fabric is comfortable to wear.
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