One of the ways we experience the world around us is through our skin.
One of the ways we experience the world around us is through our skin. From sensing temperature and pressure to pleasure or pain, the many nerve endings in our skin tell us a great deal.
Our skin can also tell the outside world a great deal about us as well. Moms press their hands against our foreheads to see if we have a fever. A date might see a blush rising on our cheeks during an intimate conversation. People at the gym might infer you are having a good workout from the beads of sweat on you.
But Caltech's Wei Gao, assistant professor in the Andrew and Peggy Cherng department of Medical Engineering wants to learn even more about you from your skin, and to that end, he has developed an electronic skin, or e-skin, that is applied directly on top of your real skin. The e-skin, made from soft, flexible rubber, can be embedded with sensors that monitor information like heart rate, body temperature, levels of blood sugar and metabolic byproducts that are indicators of health, and even the nerve signals that control our muscles. It does so without the need for a battery, as it runs solely on biofuel cells powered by one of the body's own waste products.
Read more at California Institute of Technology
Image: Sweat-powered electronic skin (Credit: Caltech)
