A team of scientists at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology has discovered a medical breakthrough that could allow amputees to glean a better sense their surroundings.

Researchers have developed a flexible sensor with the potential for integration into electronic skin. If successful, the e-skin could attach to prosthetic limbs, letting people with artificial appendages experience changes in their environments, such as touch, humidity and temperature, simultaneously.

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This is a big step forward, per the Technion Society, as current forms of e-skin can only detect touch. The researchers developed the new system using gold particles and a kind of resin, which is at least 10 times more sensitive to touch than other touch-based e-skin systems.

An effective flexible sensor would reportedly have to operate on low voltage, measure a wide range of pressures and detect more than one kind of data at once in order to find mainstream adopters. The Technion team's sensor purportedly boasts all of these qualities.

Watch the video above to learn more, and let us know what you think about the new development in the comments below.

Image courtesy of Agustín Ruiz