Researchers have created a nanostructured gel that can act as a synthetic muscle. The material reacts to chemical changes in its environment by expanding or contracting.

The gel consists of a polyacid matrix containing nanoscopic hydrophobic domains. The material is formed by self-assembly from a triblock copolymer.

Testing the synthetic muscle by using it to bend a soft cantilever revealed that it produced a power per unit mass of material of at least 20 mW/kg. This makes the synthetic muscle 10 000 times weaker than striated muscle but comparable to a eukaryotic spindle at 30 mW/kg.