Coping with adversity

Snap a wheel off a robotic vacuum cleaner and it will circle hopelessly. For a rover plonked onto a distant planet or a search-and-rescue robot sent into perilous surroundings, the consequences of damage can be more dire. A fixed number of contingency plans can be programmed into the device, but a research effort reported this week in Nature aims to teach robots how to compensate for any kind of damage.