ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2026
Life-like behavior emerging in active and flexible microstructures.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Field-Driven Active Colloids as Distributed Micromachines: Bridging Physics, Control, and Function Across Length Scales.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2026Article
- Life-like behavior emerging in active and flexible microstructures.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Nonreciprocal buckling makes active filaments polyfunctional.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Many organisms leverage an interplay between shape and activity to generate motion and adapt to their environment. Embedding such mechanical feedback into synthetic micrometer-sized robots could eliminate the need for sensors, software, and actuators. Current active micrometer-scale systems, however, do not possess a flexible body with which they can autonomously sense and react to their environment. Here, we experimentally realize active and flexible structures by concatenating anisotropic micrometer-sized units using 3D microprinting and activating them using AC fields. We demonstrate that this minimal design integrates mechanical feedback between activity and shape, resulting in a rich array of modes of motion-including railway and undulatory locomotion, rotation, and beating. It furthermore gives rise to emergent sense-response abilities, which enable autonomous reorientation, navigation, and collision avoidance. Our approach offers a versatile platform for designing biomimetic model systems and autonomously operating microrobots with embodied intelligence.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.