Imagine a world where boats swim like dolphins, planes flap their wings like birds and people move around augmented by bionic muscle suits. Until now, it's been a science fiction writer's dream because no one has been able to recreate a substance that behaves like a muscle.

Engineers at the University of New Mexico say that flying like a bird is noiseless and very maneuverable, but is something man has not been able to achieve, even with all his technology. If we are able to realise bird-like flight, personal mobility will increase thousands fold.

At the University these scientists have created artificial muscles that are as good as the real thing. Biological muscles are basically contractile. That means that they always work in an antagonistic fashion... pairs of them that work in conjunction with each other, such as our own bicep and tricep muscles in the arm.

Scientists have come up with artificial muscles that contract and expand just like human muscles but unlike their human counterparts, there's no limit to how strong they can be. One day they even could be used for propulsion.

Mr Boney is a life-sized plastic skeleton that moves. How, you may ask? Get ready for this: artificial muscles. The heart is controlled by a microprocessor and the blood that it pumps to these muscles is a simple chemical compound. But what it's doing is almost exactly approximating the function of a human muscle. Not only can artificial muscles be used mechanically, they may be used inside the human body to replace wasted or diseased muscles.

The muscles can be packaged to be put to a broad spectrum of uses, they can be packaged into specific shapes like thigh or calve muscles, or shapeless masses, to be used wherever they are needed.

These muscles are made of Orlon, an artificial silk which is cooked and then boiled to make a rubbery blob. Cooked Orlon has a hierarchical structure similar to human muscle of smaller and smaller fibers. Orlon fibers are naturally negatively charged with electricity.

When you apply acid to this material, you introduce a positive electrical charge which causes the ions to attract. This action contracts the material. When a base material is applied, a negative charge is introduced and the ions then repel and cause the muscle to expand.

The hope is that one day our own blood could activate the artificial muscle, but first they have to overcome the problem of rejection. Scientists are working on encapsulating the muscle so the body won't reject it. They think muscles in humans may be a reality in five to ten years and propulsion-using muscles within three years.

Ant is a prototype robot but there is a difference here, no motors or hydraulics in this machine. This robot uses muscle wire made from a titanium alloy that contracts when electricity is passed through it and it can lift thousands of times its weight. The controller sends impulses to the muscle wires, causing the robot to move. A similar project is being worked upon by NASA, trying to add artificial muscle to the exterior of space suits to augment movement in space.

By replacing motors, noise can be eliminated. This factor will be very important in the field of the military, as there is an importance for stealth. This concept of bionisation of engineering though in it's infancy today has limitless applications, especially in the field of medicine.