"Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology. We have the capability to make the world's first bionic man. Steve Austin will be that man. Better than he was before. Better... stronger... faster."
If you've ever fantasized about becoming the Six Million Dollar Man—and we don't mean those dream romps you took with Lindsay Wagner when you were a preteen, stop being so nasty—researchers at the UT Dallas NanoTech Institute have been working on artificial muscles powered by alcohol and hydrogen fuel cells that are a 100 times stronger than natural muscles.
The artificial muscles could be used in all sorts of things like autonomous robots and morphing structures for terrain-specific vehicles, but to us the sexiest applications have got to be artificial limbs and exoskeletons. Imagine how many more posts we'd be able to crank out of here a day if we had bionic fingers.
(image from Bug Eyed Monster)
U.T. Dallas Nanotechnologists Demonstrate Artificial Muscles Powered by Highly Energetic Fuels [UTD NanoTech Institute News, via we make money not art]