You could say that they’re “hungry” for knowledge. UK researchers are in the process of developing a robotic system that mimics the way the human jaws bite and chew. They’ve named their invention “Dento-Munch”, and so far, they’ve found a way of rotating the jaw up to 6 degrees of freedom, and work on a 3 dimensional axis: up and down, left and right, forwards and backwards.

So what’s Dento-Munch going to do—aside from being a very intricate nutcracker? Well, it will save the dentistry industry billions of pounds a year, for starters.

Companies devote a lot of time and money to develop dental materials to strengthen or improve teeth. But what works in a laboratory may not hold up well in real life, considering the wear and tear it’ll get on a daily basis. Dento Munch will put the materials to the test—allowing companies to check the durability of the product without massproducing what will later turn out to be duds.