Science BREAKTHROUGH: ‘Nanotechnology can boost Mars colony bid,’ Elon Musk told

“The legs are super strong. Each robot carries a body that’s 1,000 times thicker and weighs roughly 8,000 times more than each leg.”

As a scientists specialising in electrical engineering, Mr Miskin will not be directly responsible for developing possible applications for the new technology – but given they can be injected using a syringe, the possible implications for future surgical techniques are obvious.

For example, they could be used to deliver drugs or map the human brain, he said.

He also suggested billionaire space flight entrepreneur Elon Musk – currently plotting a colony on Mars – might be interested in them, saying: “It’s been suggested the big problem with robots is their size, and that they should be made really small instead, which could work for space exploration.”