List of All Articles with Tag 'h'

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Scientists have invented a type of electronic skin that can “talk directly to the brain”, allowing amputees to feel a human-like sense of touch through prosthetic limbs. The ground-breaking artificial skin is embedded with sensors for temperature, pressure and strain, which are converted into electrical signals – similar to how nerve impulses communicate with the brain. The wearable electronic circuit, known as a monolithic e-skin, was developed by a team from Stanford University, who detailed their breakthrough in a study published in the journal Science. Stanford University’s Zhenan Bao, who was a senior author of the study, told The Independent that the next-generation technology could also be used to feel objects and sensations while controlling a robotic limb remotely. “We’ve been working on a monolithic e-skin for some time,” Professor Bao said. “The hurdle was not so much finding mechanisms to mimic the remarkable sensory abilities of human touch, but bringing them together using only skin-like materials.” Weichen Wang, a doctoral candidate in Bao’s lab, added: “Much of that challenge came down to advancing the skin-like electronic materials so that they can be incorporated into integrated circuits with sufficient complexity to generate nerve-like pulse trains and low enough operating voltage to be used safely on the human body.” A prototype of the e-skin, which is about the thickness of a piece of paper, is the first to combine all the desired electrical and mechanical features of human skin in a soft and durable form. The team now plans to increase the scalability of the technology and develop an implantable chip to allow wireless communication through the body’s peripheral nerve. Other recent research into electronic skin has focussed on robotics, aiming to provide robots with sensory feedback and physical self-awareness. A team from the University of Edinburgh unveiled a device earlier this year that offered perceptive senses “similar to those of people and animals”. A separate study in 2023 from engineers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) outlined a type of artificial skin capable of sensing toxic chemicals, which could allow robots to detect anything from pollution in rivers to nerve agents and biohazards. Read More AI robots figure out how to play football in shambolic footage Scientists develop device that allows amputees to feel warmth in phantom hand Charting the controversial rise of the world’s most popular app Montana TikTok ban ‘unconstitutional’ and ‘impossible to enforce’

Scientists have developed a device that allows amputees to feel warmth in their phantom hand. MiniTouch consists of a small sensor placed on an amputee’s prosthetic finger and electrodes that mimic sensations on the residual arm. The electrodes on the amputated arm are able to relay the temperature of the object being touched by the finger sensor, giving “the illusion that we are cooling down, or warming up, missing fingers”. The researchers said their findings, published in the journal Science, could allow amputees to have temperature-sensing technology built into their prosthetic limbs, without the need for invasive technology. The team said they developed MiniTouch after unexpectedly discovering that amputees somehow are able to feel temperatures in their missing hand. Dr Solaiman Shokur, a neuroengineer and scientist at Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland, said: “We discovered a new mechanism that we call the thermal phantom sensation.” In an able-bodied person, if something hot or cold is placed on the forearm, that person will feel the object’s temperature directly on their forearm. But in amputees, that temperature sensation on the residual arm may be felt in the phantom, missing hand, the researchers said. Dr Shokur said: “(During the tests) we were expecting for them to tell us, with eyes closed, where they felt it (temperature sensations) on the stump, and if it was hot or cold. “Instead, they pointed into a drawing of a hand that they had in front of them and they told us ‘I feel it there’. “We asked them several times ‘What do you mean by that, I feel it there?’ and then they clarified that they felt it into their phantom missing hand. “So this discovery was crucial for us to develop a neurotechnology that could integrate the prosthetic hand of patients.” The team said they were able to successfully test their bionic technology in 17 out of 27 patients. MiniTouch uses information about an object’s heat conducting properties to determine how hot or cold it is. The scientists said they found that small areas of skin on the amputated arm are able to project temperature sensations to specific parts of the phantom hand, like the thumb, or the tip of an index finger. They also discovered that these temperature sensations between the residual arm and the projected phantom one is unique to each patient. Fabrizio Fidati, an amputee from Italy, who took part in the study, said: “Warmth is the most beautiful feeling there is… like when we need warmth, we use a hot water bottle.” He added: “So far, prostheses have mainly been designed to have simple everyday movements, to help you in your everyday life. “But integrations of sensations of hot and cold, in my opinion, also serves to improve social interactions. “When shaking hands with people, warmth is… fundamental.” Study participant Francesca Rossi, also from Italy, added: “Temperature feedback is a nice sensation because you feel the limb, the phantom limb, entirely. “It does not feel phantom anymore because your limb is back.” Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live Self-driving cars will cause ‘moral panic’ – transport minister Cryptocurrency trading should be regulated as gambling, says treasury committee WhatsApp offers new password protected feature to hide messages

Election falsehoods are thriving on Twitter after former President Donald Trump dug in on those claims during a recent CNN town hall

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer says Congress “must move quickly” to regulate artificial intelligence and has convened a bipartisan group of senators to work on legislation