MIT made a robot powered by actual living muscle. It's a paper-thin swimming robot roughly the footprint of a stick of gum. Its fins are covered in genetically engineered living muscle cells; shine light on one side and the cells contract, moving the robot through water. We're quietly entering the era where the distinction between machine and organism gets weird.

https://news.mit.edu/2026/powered-by-muscle-cells-paper-thin-robot-swims-through-watery-maze-0929