August 9, 2012 | Elise

In mechanics, weak spots are bad. They can make bridges collapse, ships break up at sea, and the carefully crafted pile of paper on my desk disintegrate into a muddled mess.

But now scientists are creating materials with specific weak spots that behave in a predictable way to transform the shape of an object.

This ‘extreme mechanics‘ could be used to create robot hands that transform into tools, bags that turn into tents, or even tiny drug delivery capsules that expand and release their medicine when they reach their target in the body.