Scientists from the Chinese University of Hong Kong have built a robot that can melt from a solid state into a liquid one and be reshaped into its original form.

The microbot is made out of liquid microparticles and is controlled by external magnetic fields. The team hope to use it to help humans, by using it to fetch swallowed objects for example, but the people are also playfully drawing comparisons to the robot in Terminator 2. 

To fully complete the Terminator 2 machine, it also needs to have skin to mimic humans. Nanyang Technological University may be able to help, as they have developed an artificial skin that can detect and identify things it hasn’t even touched yet.

A sensitive capacitor can measure the distance between and changes in the electric fields around two electrodes to sense an object, whether it is directly touching it or if it is nearby.