A gel that mimics skin has been electrified so that touch can be felt Andrey Prokhorov/Getty Images

Electrified artificial skin made of strange orange jelly can tell when you are touching it and can heal itself. It could someday be used in prosthetics or to cover robots so that they can sense their surroundings.

Many different types of “e-skin” devices have been made that can be bent, stretched or attached to a person’s skin to generate power or detect their heart rate, for example. But these devices tend to be limited because they can usually only be made …