Engineers at Cornell have developed robots that can sense and respond to damage without human instruction. Pluck off part of a leg, and they adjust their gait to compensate. Eventually, robots like these could crawl into high-risk areas on search-and-rescue missions, or explore distant planets where no humans are around to repair robotic injuries.

[Read](http://www.nature.com/news/2006/061113/full/061113-16.html “Read the Story”) (Nature)