Two Research Groups Create 'Electric Skin'

Posted by Soulskill on Monday September 13, 2010 @05:30AM from the toasters-look-like-us-now dept.

Flash Modin writes "Two separate teams, one from UC Berkeley and the other from Stanford, have created distinct types of artificial skin that could find uses in prosthetics or artificial intelligence (Data in First Contact, anyone?). The first team coupled organic electronics with an elastic polymer to make electric skin that could sense a butterfly landing on it (abstract). The second team put a flexible material over a conductive rubber compound which had transistors implanted in it. The device can sense touch when the rubber is compressed, changing the electrical resistance (abstract)."

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Re:Use with prosthetics by Ukab+the+Great · 2010-09-13 05:36 · Score: 4, Funny

Actually my first thought was sensory enhanced black latex cat suit that electrocutes bad guys.
Re:Use with prosthetics by danlip · 2010-09-13 05:42 · Score: 4, Insightful

Not only possible but fairly trivial. You don't have to tie directly into the nervous system, you can use the electrical signal to stimulate another patch of skin, and the brain will quickly learn to interpret the signal properly. But it is also possible (but less trivial) to tie directly into the nervous system - this is done on a regular basis with cochlear implants, and there are a few experimental retinal implants now too.