A statement on the website of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) says Chinese physicists have recently made breakthrough findings in liquid metal that allow hard metal to become flexible as liquid metal, a step closer to building a shape-shifting liquid metal similar to the T-1000 Terminator in the science fiction film.

While liquid metal machines are used to rely on pure liquid materials, this breakthrough actually combines solid and liquid metals, which would enable the liquid metal machinery to have functional structures, like bones for a live person, according to a press release published on the website of the CAS' Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry on Tuesday.

The T-1000 appears indestructible in the film, as it can quickly repair any damage. It can also take on any appearance it likes and slide under doors or through prison cell bars, the Independent newspaper reported.

The joint discovery by the institute and Tsinghua University shows that the liquid metal machinery triggered violin-like wire oscillation and jumping liquid metal droplet inside sets of solid-liquid combined machinery, according to the website.

The mechanism has led to the development of self-propelled liquid metal motors and liquid metal-wheeled small vehicles.

The CAS team led by Liu Jing has made huge breakthroughs in chip cooling, advanced manufacturing and electronic, biomedical and flexible machinery applications, read the press release.

A team of engineers at RMIT University in Melbourne are working on how to enable liquid metal to move autonomously. "Eventually, using the fundamentals of this discovery, it may be possible to build a 3D liquid metal humanoid on demand, like the T-1000 Terminator," professor Kourosh Kalantar-Zadeh said on the university's official website on August 5.