Say you wake up and you find slot that you’ve transformed into a six legged insect. This might be a rather disruptive experience, but if you carry on, you’ll probably want to find out what your

new body can and can’t do. Perhaps you’ll find a mirror. Perhaps, with a little bit of time, you might be able to acclimatize to this new shape.

This fantastic concept isn’t too different from the principle that some engineers want to harness to build better robots. For a demonstration, one group has created a robot that could learn, through practice, what its own form can do.