Beginnings of Bionic
Flexible, stretchable electronics could launch cyborg era
Michael McAlpine’s shiny circuit doesn’t look like something you would
stick in your mouth. It’s dashed with gold, has a coiled antenna and is
glued to a stiff rectangle. But the antenna flexes, and the rectangle is
actually silk, its stiffness melting away under water. And if you paste
the device on your tooth, it cou
ld keep you healthy.
The electronic gizmo is designed to detect dangerous bacteria and send
out warning signals, alerting its bearer to microbes slipping past the
lips. Recently, McAlpine, of Princeton University, and his colleagues
spotted a single E. coli bacterium skittering across the surface of the
gadget’s sensor. The sensor also picked out ulcer-causing H. pylori amid
the molecular medley of human saliva, the team reported earlier this
year in Nature Communications.
At about the size of a standard
postage stamp, the dental device is still too big to fit comfortably in a
human mouth. “We had to use a cow tooth,” McAlpine says, describing
test experiments. But his team plans to shrink the gadget so it can
nestle against human enamel. McAlpine is convinced that one day, perhaps
five to 10 years from now, everyone will wear some sort of electronic
device. “It’s not just teeth,” he says. “People are going to be bionic.”
Read more at http://www.sciencenews.org/
Image: J. Rogers/Univ. of Illinois
Beginnings of Bionic
Flexible, stretchable electronics could launch cyborg era
Michael McAlpine’s shiny circuit doesn’t look like something you would stick in your mouth. It’s dashed with gold, has a coiled antenna and is glued to a stiff rectangle. But the antenna flexes, and the rectangle is actually silk, its stiffness melting away under water. And if you paste the device on your tooth, it cou
Flexible, stretchable electronics could launch cyborg era
Michael McAlpine’s shiny circuit doesn’t look like something you would stick in your mouth. It’s dashed with gold, has a coiled antenna and is glued to a stiff rectangle. But the antenna flexes, and the rectangle is actually silk, its stiffness melting away under water. And if you paste the device on your tooth, it cou
ld keep you healthy.
The electronic gizmo is designed to detect dangerous bacteria and send out warning signals, alerting its bearer to microbes slipping past the lips. Recently, McAlpine, of Princeton University, and his colleagues spotted a single E. coli bacterium skittering across the surface of the gadget’s sensor. The sensor also picked out ulcer-causing H. pylori amid the molecular medley of human saliva, the team reported earlier this year in Nature Communications.
At about the size of a standard postage stamp, the dental device is still too big to fit comfortably in a human mouth. “We had to use a cow tooth,” McAlpine says, describing test experiments. But his team plans to shrink the gadget so it can nestle against human enamel. McAlpine is convinced that one day, perhaps five to 10 years from now, everyone will wear some sort of electronic device. “It’s not just teeth,” he says. “People are going to be bionic.”
Read more at http://www.sciencenews.org/
Image: J. Rogers/Univ. of Illinois
The electronic gizmo is designed to detect dangerous bacteria and send out warning signals, alerting its bearer to microbes slipping past the lips. Recently, McAlpine, of Princeton University, and his colleagues spotted a single E. coli bacterium skittering across the surface of the gadget’s sensor. The sensor also picked out ulcer-causing H. pylori amid the molecular medley of human saliva, the team reported earlier this year in Nature Communications.
At about the size of a standard postage stamp, the dental device is still too big to fit comfortably in a human mouth. “We had to use a cow tooth,” McAlpine says, describing test experiments. But his team plans to shrink the gadget so it can nestle against human enamel. McAlpine is convinced that one day, perhaps five to 10 years from now, everyone will wear some sort of electronic device. “It’s not just teeth,” he says. “People are going to be bionic.”
Read more at http://www.sciencenews.org/
Image: J. Rogers/Univ. of Illinois
No comments:
Post a Comment