A snake-like robot is being developed to aid medics in the rapid diagnosis and treatment of injured soldiers, from Technology Review:
Choset and his students have engineered a highly articulated robotic arm that consists of multiple actuated joints, which give the robot a snakelike flexibility. Each joint has two degrees of freedom that, working together, allow the robot to flex, retract, and twist into different configurations, much like a live snake.
As ever snakebots+military immediately put me in mind of Alastair Reynold’s excellent Century Rain.