Science Fiction Dictionary
A  B  C  D  E  F  G  H  I  J  K  L  M  N  O  P  Q  R  S  T  U  V  W  X  Y  Z

 

Skin Electronics 3D Printed

Check out this neat 3D printer that draws electrically conductive material directly on a person’s skin, creating temporary, tattoolike electronic devices.


(Skin Electronics 3D Printed video)

Michael McAlpine, an engineer at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, and colleagues used this motion-savvy 3-D printer to construct wearable LEDs. The printer first stuck a premade LED light to the wearer’s skin, then drew a circuit around the bulb using a polymer ink laced with silver flakes, which allow the ink to conduct electric current.

After waiting 15 minutes for the ink to dry, the user could keep the LED lit by holding a wireless power transmitter over the printed circuit. Future on-the-body electronics could be powered by 3-D printed batteries, McAlpine says. The researchers also printed moisture sensors, which could be used to monitor sweat accumulation to gauge stress levels.

The wearable devices stay on for at least two hours, but users can dispose of the prints by peeling them off with tweezers or washing them off with water. McAlpine’s team imagines soldiers toting the compact 3-D printer, which weighs about 1.4 kilograms, in their packs to print chemical or biological agent sensors or solar cells on the fly (SN Online: 4/5/18).

(Via ScienceNews.)

Active tattoos can be found in various sf works; consider the subdermal microchannels from the 1985 cyberpunk classic Stone Lives by Paul Di Filippo:

June's body is a tracery of lambent lines, like some arcane capillary circuitry in the core of Mao/K'ung Fu-Tzu. Following the current craze, she has had a subdermal pattern of micro-channels implanted. The channels are filled with synthetic luciferase, the biochemical responsible for the glow of fireflies.
(Read more about Di Filippo's Subdermal Microchannels)

A similar idea is used in Nova Swing by M. John Harrison.

Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 5/27/2018)

Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.

| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |

Would you like to contribute a story tip? It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add it here.

Comment/Join discussion ( 0 )

Related News Stories - (" Engineering ")

Philips Smart Palm Recognition Smart Deadbolt
'A palm lock must be keyed to one individual's hand shape...' - Frank Herbert, 1965.

MAGGIE Mars Aerial and Ground Global Intelligent Explorer
'placed in the wings of a plane to generate power from the light falling on that surface...' - John W. Campbell, 1930.

Pipedream Underground Delivery At Peachtree Corners
'...open mouths of pneumatic tubes, an endless row of them, each marked with its destination.' - Miles J. Breuer, 1932

Hangzhou Robotic Trash Sorting
'...good enough to recognize most things they pick up.' - Harry Harrison, 1956.

 

Google
  Web TechNovelgy.com   

Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.

 

 

 

 

Science Fiction Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's   1950's
1960's   1970's
1980's   1990's
2000's   2010's

Current News

Cheap Drunk Driver Detection From UofM
"Look, I can drive... Start, darn it!"

Can A Human Land A SpaceX Rocket On Its Tail?
'If she starts to roll sideways — blooey! The underjets only hold you up when they’re pointing down, you know.'

Robot Snakes No Longer Stopped By Stairs
'...she dropped her hands from the wheel, took the robot snake from his box.'

Has Turkey Been Stealing Rain From Iran?
Can one country take another's rain?

We Need To Build Anti-Drone Systems For Civilian Spaces
'the real border was defended by ...a swarm of quasi-independent aerostats...'

SensorWake Scent-Based Alarm Clock
'The odalarm awoke Jorj X. McKie with a whiff of lemon.'

AI Worms That Spread
'...there were so many worms and counterworms loose in the data-net now'

Challenges Of Two-Armed Robots
When the left hand knows what the right hand is doing.

FlexRAM Liquid Metal RAM And One Particular SF Movie Robot
'Its lines wavered, flowed, and then painfully reformed.'

Ulm Sleep Pods For The Homeless
'The lid lifted and she crawled inside...'

Prophetic Offers Lucid Dreaming Halo With Morpheus-1 AI
''Leads trail away from insertion points on her face and wrist... to a lucid dreamer...'

More Like A Tumblebug Than A Motorcycle
'It is about the size and shape of a kitchen stool, gyro-stabilized on a single wheel...'

Tesla Camera-Only Vision Predicted In 1930's SF
'By its means, the machine can see.'

First Ever Proof Of Water On Asteroids
'Yes, strangely enough there was still sufficient water beneath the surface of Vesta.'

Aptera Solar EV More Stylish Than Heinlein Steel Tortoise
'When confronted by hills, or rough terrain, it did not stop, but simply slowed until the task demanded equaled its steady power output.'

Gigantic Space Sunshade Would Fight Global Warming
'...the light of the sun had been polarized by two crossed fields so that no radiation could pass.'

More SF in the News Stories

More Beyond Technovelgy science news stories

Home | Glossary | Invention Timeline | Category | New | Contact Us | FAQ | Advertise |
Technovelgy.com - where science meets fiction™

Copyright© Technovelgy LLC; all rights reserved.