Slashdot Mirror
Stretchy Wires to Create Artificial Nerves
Roland Piquepaille writes "Researchers from the Johns Hopkins University have built electronic circuits which exhibit a rubbery behavior. The flexible circuits, built by using gold springs, can stretch like rubber. And Nature says that these stretchy wires can be used to create artificial nerves bending inside our bodies or wearable electronics. 'Wiring like this could be woven into stretchy sports clothing and used to connect up sensors that monitor athletic performance. Rubbery electrodes made from biocompatible materials might be attached to a beating heart and used to sense impending problems.' This overview contains more details and references about these flexible wires."
Ummm how about we use this to monitor all the athleets to see if any are using "performance enhancing drugs". it's a monitoring not enhancing thing
A psychopath can't tell the difference between right and wrong. A sociopath knows the difference - he just doesn't care.
It's not really a drug that artificially enhances performance I don't think. I guess perhaps it's a more accurate way of doing things like monitoring heartbeat, getting the best workout and such. Athletes such as divers use machines to measure lung capacity and gradually work on how long they can hold their breath (to be brief). I think this opens the field up to even more precise measuring overall. And it could also be used as a safety tool for patients in therapy.
Seriously though, this sounds fine for integrating electronics into fabrics, but the "artificial nerve" idea conjures images on Christopher Reeve leaping up and tap dancing. This invention doesn't sound like it has any therapeutic uses that a normal wire doesn't. Perhaps users of vagus nerve stimulators or other devices requiring in vivo wiring could be a little more physically vigorous without worrying about things pulling or breaking... but I have my doubts about even that.
Now we will have to go to a certified mechanic to get our bodies checked out.
That's basically what doctors are. Human mechanics.
Soon we will have doctors hooking us up to machines to see what wrong.
Like EKGs, for example?
Douchebag.
From the article:
"the researchers estimate that the wires should be able to withstand several thousand cycles of extension and contraction."
That's no where NEAR what would be needed for any of the applications they mention. For example, at 70 beats per minute your heart beats 100,800 times per day. Assuming each step a runner takes covers 3 feet (very approximate here), then a "cycle" (back to starting configuration) is 6 ft. That's 880 "cycles" per mile. A single 6 mile run is therefore over 5000 cycles.
Several thousand "cycles of extension and contraction" is not even close to enough for any real world app. Who wants to have that internal heart monitor replaced several times each day? How about that high-tech single use "smart" sweatshirt?
These will need to be in the 100's of thousands to millions of cycles for their lifespan before they have any real utility.
Life is short: void the warranty.
The reason that you see gold being used for this kind of stuff is that it's easy to work with. If you try and electroplate copper, you've got to worry about various oxides forming and all sorts of other junk. This can be prevented through careful control of your electroplating conditions. However, in the sort of rapid prototyping conditions that these researchers are working in, it's much simpler to just use gold and not worry about it.