Roboswift
This shape-shifting robot has been designed to slip in unnoticed among a flock of real swifts so scientists can study their hyperefficient flying technique. "They are really agile and to study them you have really got to fly close to them - and look like them," says David Lentink of Wageningen University in the Netherlands. "Some birds will attack any model aircraft that comes close," he adds, in the New Scientist.