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Electronic Skin for Airplanes Will Help Them “Feel” Damage and Environmental Changes

By on August 26, 2014 in News 0
Air Canada C-FIVX, Hatton Cross/Heathrow Airport by Au Morandarte via Wikimedia Commons.

Air Canada C-FIVX, Hatton Cross/Heathrow Airport by Au Morandarte via Wikimedia Commons.

As long as it isn’t colored like the faux-flesh furniture.

via Mashable:

Concerns about airplane safety are are at a fever pitch thanks to the very visible nature of plane crashes in the past year. But as the perceived need for better danger detectors rises, so does the level of creativity used in addressing potential issues.

British aerospace company BAE Systems is designing a “skin” for airplanes that can detect damage and other environmental changes to the plane, helping to diagnose potential issues before they spiral out of control.

“The idea is to make platforms ‘feel’ using a skin of sensors in the same way humans or animals do,” senior research scientist Lydia Hyde, who instigated the project, said in a statement.

The idea came to Hyde while doing laundry one day. She noticed her dryer had a sensor that detected overheating, and realized she could apply the same kind of technology to a plane to prevent it from succumbing to extreme conditions.

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Furniture That Looks and Feels Like Human Flesh

By on July 28, 2014 in Art, News 49

I don’t think I’ll be buying the chair and stool anytime soon, but I’d definitely be willing to try it out if ever given the opportunity.

both pieces_1

via Wired:

“Children have been one of the most interesting demographics in relation to the work,” Barker, creator of the skin series and founder of design studio 9191, told Wired.co.uk. “Without any of the hang ups we later develop, they are free to truly explore and interact with the work. Work regarding the human body is very personal and we all have a very immediate reaction to it so the reactions have reflected this.”

The skin stool and skin chair sell for £440 and £1,500 respectively. And in case there was any doubt as to whether furniture that looks, feels and smells like skin (it’s impregnated with human pheromones and aftershave) is on the consumer agenda, Barker’s MA show at Central Saint Martin’s was a sell-out last month and she’s already in talks with retailers.

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Artist Surgically Removes Own Skin to Make a Ring Out of It

By on March 7, 2014 in News 3
Pic: Sruli Recht (C)

Pic: Sruli Recht (C)

Fresh on the heels of that post about engagement rings being a huge scam comes the story of an Icelandic artist who surgically removed some of his own skin in order to make this unique, hairy ring. It’s for sale, if you must have it: Only €350,000. Not sure if an engagement ring made of your own skin is a scam, but I wouldn’t recommend trying to make one yourself, in any case. The artist, Sruli Recht, makes a lot of other interesting stuff. I suggest you check out his site.

Via Beautiful/Decay:

For your consideration: a $500,000 ring mounted with a tanned sliver of hairy human skin. The piece, titled the Forget Me Knot ring, is the creation of boundary-pushing Icelandic fashion and jewelry designer Sruli Recht. For these one-of-a-kind works of art, Recht had a 110 by 10 millimeter a strip of his skin surgically removed from his abdomen; the artist then salted it, tanned it, and embedded it on a gold ring.

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Breakthrough In Artificial Skin With The Ability To Feel

By on September 13, 2010 in News 7

ALeqM5hhluheFU9tOjAGiK26fxruhsyxpQThe robots of the future will have soft skin with as refined and sensitive a sense of touch as ours. Smell and taste are now the biggest hurtles in terms of replicating the human senses electronically — as of now, androids will be able to see, hear, and touch, and yet be unable to savor a juicy hamburger. Via Google, AFP reports:

Biotech wizards have engineered electronic skin that can sense touch, in a major step towards next-generation robotics and prosthetic limbs.

The lab-tested material responds to almost the same pressures as human skin and with the same speed, they reported in the British journal Nature Materials.

The “e-skin” made by Javey’s team comprises a matrix of nanowires made of germanium and silicon rolled onto a sticky polyimide film.

The team then laid nano-scale transistors on top, followed by a flexible, pressure-sensitive rubber. The prototype, measuring 49 square centimetres (7.6 square inches), can detect pressure ranging from 0 to 15 kilopascals, comparable to the force used for such daily activities as typing on a keyboard or holding an object.

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Skin Cells Turned Directly Into Neurons

By on February 1, 2010 in News 0

By Clive Cookson for the Financial Times:

Stem cell scientists at Stanford University in California announced “a huge step forward” last night, with the publication of research that turned skin into nerve cells without any intermediate step.

The production of neurons [nerve cells] directly from other adult cells, without making stem cells en route, could transform “regenerative medicine” – providing a plentiful supply of neurons for treating people with degenerative brain diseases such as Parkinson’s or those with spinal injuries.

“We actively and directly induced one cell type to become a completely different cell type,” said Marius Wernig of Stanford’s Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine. “These are fully functional neurons. They can do all the principal things that neurons in the brain do.”…

[continues at the Financial Times]

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