
Walt Disney Imagineering has unexpectedly given Frozen’s lovable snowman Olaf a very lifelike pair of legs that look and function like the actual thing. This new Olaf robot roams the crowds at Hong Kong Disneyland, engaging with children and waving to visitors in a way that makes him appear to have sprung straight out of Arendelle. It took years for the engineers to transform a collection of code and motors into something that truly feels alive, and the ultimate result is right in the heart of the park’s new World of Frozen.

Photo credit: Jeon et al., Sci. Adv. 11, eadt5888 (2025)
A lab in Seoul had a major breakthrough with a project that produced a robot that resembles a gummy bear and behaves like a living cell. Just try dropping it from a table to see what happens – it splats and then just rolls away like it never happened. Squeeze it between your fingers and it oozes like jelly, only to snap back to its original shape when you let go. Play a burst of sound at it by sending two of them towards each other and they basically kiss, fuse and transform into one bigger blob – complete with whatever each one swallowed along the way.