Electronic artificial skin reacts to pain

This is the claim of researchers at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia whose prototype device mimics the body's near-instant feedback response and can react to painful sensations with the same speed that nerve signals travel to the brain.

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Lead researcher Professor Madhu Bhaskaran said the pain-sensing prototype was a significant advance towards next-generation biomedical technologies and intelligent robotics.

"Skin is our body's largest sensory organ, with complex features designed to send rapid-fire warning signals when anything hurts," Bhaskaran said in a statement. "We're sensing things all the time through the skin, but our pain response only kicks in at a certain point, like when we touch something too hot or too sharp. No electronic technologies have been able to realistically mimic that very human feeling of pain - until now. Our artificial skin reacts instantly when pressure, heat, or cold reach a painful threshold.