そこで考えたのが、健康・医療・介護のリアルデータプラットフォーム(PHR：Personal Health Record)を基盤として、銀行や保険会社、企業が行なっている健康改善するともらえるポイントや割引を共通化して、新たな仮想通貨・電子マネー「Health Coin」を作り、健康増進行動を促すためのインセンティブ（トークンを報酬として付与する）が与えられ、トークン（電子証票）を受け取った患者は医療などのヘルスケア関連の費用として支払うことができるというアイデアです。
The new material has a strain density (expansion per gram) that is 15 times larger than natural muscle, and can lift 1000 times its own weight.
＜中略＞
It was tested in a variety of robotic applications where it showed significant expansion-contraction ability, being capable of expansion up to 900% when electrically heated to 80°C.
Unlike rigid robots, soft robots can replicate natural motion—grasping and manipulation—to provide medical and other types of assistance, perform delicate tasks, or pick up soft objects.
Now, MIT researchers have come up with one of the simplest and lowest-cost systems yet for developing such “muscles,” in which a material reproduces some of the bending motions that natural muscle tissues perform.
The key ingredient, cheap and ubiquitous, is ordinary nylon fiber.
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Spinks adds, “Bending-type actuators are needed for robotic grippers, microscopic tools, and various machine components. These new bending actuators could have immediate application.”
The components of such edible robots could be mixed with nutrient or pharmaceutical components for digestion and metabolization. Potential applications are disposable robots for exploration, digestible robots for medical purposes in humans and animals, and food transportation where the robot does not require additional payload because the robot is the food.
The team constructed dozens of muscles using materials ranging from metal springs to packing foam to sheets of plastic, and experimented with different skeleton shapes to create muscles that can contract down to 10 percent of their original size, lift a delicate flower off the ground, and twist into a coil, all simply by sucking the air out of them.
MIT CSAILとハーバード大学のWyss Instituteの研究者は、折り紙からインスピレーションを受けた、折り畳み式の人工筋肉を開発したそうです。
But the Aura is designed for an older crowd are less intent on lifting superhuman loads and busier fighting the battle against their aging bodies for a decent standard of living. It’s specifically designed to provide “core wellness support” to its wearer’s torso, hips, and legs to give an extra boost to the muscles while performing basic (but essential) actions like getting up, sitting down, or staying upright.
While meant to be worn under the clothes, the design is sleek and modern, not a far cry from the popular athleisure looks that fill gyms and yoga studios.
