Getting stitched(缝合) up by Dr. Robot may one day be reality. Scientists have created a robotic system which did just that in living animals without a real doctor pulling the strings. Much like engineers are designing self-driving cars, the medical research is part of a move toward autonomous surgical robots, removing the surgeon’s hands from certain tasks that a machine might perform all by itself.

Doctors wouldn’t leave the bedside they’re supposed to watch. Plus they’d handle the rest of the surgery. In small tests using pigs, the robotic arm performed at least as well, and in some cases a bit better, as some competing surgeons in stitching together intestinal(肠的) tissue. “The purpose wasn’t to replace surgeons, ”said Dr. Kim who led the project. “If you have all intelligent tool that works with a surgeon, can it improve the outcome? That’s what we have done.”

If you’ve heard about machines like the popular Da Vinci system, you might think robots already are operating. Not really. Today many hospitals offer robot-assisted surgery where surgeons use the machinery as tools that they control by hand to operate through tiny openings in the body. But robot-assisted surgery has been controversial, as some studies have shown it can bring higher costs without better outcomes.

Kim’s team at Children’s Sheikh Zayed Institute invented the new STAR system—it stands for Smart Tissue Autonomous Robot—works sort of like a programmable sewing machine. They added sensors to help guide each stitch and tell how tightly to pull. But the approach wasn’t perfect. In the living animals, the robot took much longer and made a few stitching mistakes while the surgeon sewing by hand made none. Kim said the robot can be sped up. He hopes to begin human studies in two or three years.

Lucy Hughes, a 24-year-old English inventor, has used skin and scales (鳞)from fish to create a new kind of plastic that will break down in about six weeks. Her invention won this year's James Dyson Award.

Ms. Hughes was very aware of how wasteful many products are. Plastic items (物品)，for example, are often made from new plastic, used once for a short time, and then thrown away. She decided to challenge herself to make something out of waste instead.

Fishing is a big business in England, and the University of Sussex where Ms. Hughes studied wasn't far from the coast. She spent some time studying the fishing business, and the things that were thrown away. She was amazed by the amount of waste from fish that gets thrown away.

After some tests, Ms. Hughes decided that the fish skin and scales seemed like the most likely parts for her product. But then she needed something to bind (hold the material together) with. She found that red algae (红藻)was the best binder.

Ms. Hughes called her finished product “MarinaTex”, which is clear and feels like plastic, but stronger than regular plastic of the same thickness. MarinaTex is also cheap to make since it's made from fish waste. Ms. Hughes says that the waste from one Atlantic cod (a fish) could make 1,400 bags. The process of making MarinaTex also doesn't use much energy. Most importantly, MarinaTex doesn't take hundreds of years to break down.

Ms. Hughes thinks that one of the best uses for MarinaTex will be in some kinds of food packaging where plastic is currently being used. Ms. Hughes is looking forward to moving ahead with her idea. She wants to try to make her recipe for making her plastic even better. She hopes the award money will help her with the process of getting MarinaTex into use as quickly as possible.