French scientists have designed an electronic conducting polymer actuator that can extend and contract linearly rather than bending. The fibres could eventually be used to develop artificial muscles.

Researchers from the University of Cergy-Pontoise, France, and other groups have been investigating polymer actuator devices that bend when electrically stimulated.

But more recently they have been trying to develop devices that present "push-pull" linear deformations, just like those of mammalian muscles.

Read the full story on Chemical Science.