Researchers at ETH Zürich are very good at keeping robots standing upright. Back in 2022, the school’s robotics team taught the quadrupedal ANYmal robot how to hike up mountains without falling over.

Scientists from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and the University of Calgary have developed a modular robot system that can morph into different shapes.

The cover story of this issue is inspired by a fair exhibit that was so popular that it also inspired at least two other comic book characters of the era. Elektro, the robot created by Westinghouse ...