FUTURE IMPLICATIONS

This new artificial skin should be seen as a breakthrough in the field of engineering. With its humidity sensor, those wearing a prosthetic limb will be able to distinguish dry objects from wet objects. With its temperature sensor, they’ll be able to differentiate cold objects from hot objects. And with its pressure sensor, their ability to grasp objects will be far more efficient than ever before. The disabled are becoming abled once again.

But what does this mean for future wearers? Unlike biological limbs, artificial ones are susceptible to self-designed changes. Don’t like the texture of your skin? Swap it out for a new texture. Don’t like the length or design of your arm or leg? Walk into a Body Shop and get a new one to your liking. Why do the limbs necessarily have to look human? For some, they may want to switch out their running limbs for climbing limbs. We’re now reaching that point in the prosthesis market in which not only makes the disabled abled again, but also augmented!

“Man, for actively evolutionary thinkers, is a being in transition, in the process of growing, far from complete, but also consciously creative, called upon to overcome not only the outer world but also his own inner nature.” – Svetlana Semenova

Photo Credit: Kim et al./Nature Communications