While people not involved in a sci-fi universe shouldn't ever need such a procedure, robotic surgery certainly has its benefits. Working with the body's soft tissue has proved difficult, however, because of how much it can squish and change during surgery. A new machine called the Smart Tissue Automation Robot (STAR) at Johns Hopkins University has overcome this obstacle and proven its ability by operating on pigs.

STAR consists of a robotic arm equipped with a suturing tool coupled with a 3D imaging system and near-infrared sensor that looks for fluorescent markers put along the edges of tissue by the researchers. The surgery is guided by an "autonomous suturing algorithm" specially developed to work with the system.