If you thought the BigDog video was disturbing, iRobot’s “chembot” video is flat-out revolting: From the title: “Jamming Skin Enabled Locomotion” (JSEL, with the much more pleasant-sounding pronunciation, “Giselle”), to the animation of the green, shrimp-looking robot rendering, to the use of the term “jammable slurry,” — mmm … jammable slurry — to the pulsating, throbbing, ball of pasty colored I-don’t-know-what straight out of Nine Inch Nails’ “Closer” video.

My delicate sensibilities aside, it’s not hard to see how this could be useful. The throbbing ball is the first look at DARPA’s chembot soft robotics project. Robots made out of soft materials could squeeze through tight spots. A similar project based on catepillars is underway at Tufts, and Northeastern professor Joseph Ayers is involved in a project to take the idea to the next, even grosser level: robots made out of actual biological material.