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Stretchy Wires to Create Artificial Nerves

Posted by CowboyNeal on Mon Mar 15, 2004 10:56 AM
from the singing-the-body-electric dept.
Biotech Science
Roland Piquepaille writes "Researchers from the Johns Hopkins University have built electronic circuits which exhibit a rubbery behavior. The flexible circuits, built by using gold springs, can stretch like rubber. And Nature says that these stretchy wires can be used to create artificial nerves bending inside our bodies or wearable electronics. 'Wiring like this could be woven into stretchy sports clothing and used to connect up sensors that monitor athletic performance. Rubbery electrodes made from biocompatible materials might be attached to a beating heart and used to sense impending problems.' This overview contains more details and references about these flexible wires."
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  • How long until... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by PornMaster (749461) on Monday March 15 2004, @10:57AM (#8568646) Homepage
    ...they're putting them into condoms to build up a database for "virtual sex"?

    • Re:How long until... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by WormholeFiend (674934) on Monday March 15 2004, @11:02AM (#8568705)
      it wouldnt surprise me if the pr0n industry serves as a test-bed for this new technology, as it did with previous others.

      the parent said 'condoms'... but I thought 'dildos'.

      not that I know anything about using those devices. they are, as some say, 'not my bag'.
      --
        • "What did you expect, with a name like that?"

          well, something different than with a name like "anonymous coward".

          Wormhole Fiend is the nic I used when I played Subspace, due to my habit of orbiting the wormhole and putting a high number of bombs in orbit around it, mostly in Chaos Zone.

          Since most people there call me "Wormy" for short, that's what I use now.
          -

  • Excellent idea (Score:4, Funny)

    by BigBadBri (595126) on Monday March 15 2004, @10:58AM (#8568665)
    Now I can make the electro-stimulation Condom!

    Thrills for you and for her - with the optional audio input, you too cam throb to the music of lurrrve gods such as Barry White or Motorhead!

  • Rubbery Behavior (Score:3, Funny)

    by superpulpsicle (533373) on Monday March 15 2004, @10:59AM (#8568672)
    As soon as they said Rubbery Behavior, I am thinking of this ultra advanced underwear.

    What a change since the medievil days when knights used to wear potato-sack-material like underwear.
    • Now you can finally make a data port that connects directly to a person. You can theoretically send and receive neural signals which can interact and control a machine...or perhaps the other way around. If you think I full of crap, check out this link [darpa.mil]. Join the Army and you too can be a cyborg!
      • They succeeded in growing nervous system tissue on a connected silicon chip a long time ago, I pretty much figured that was the last step and since then people have been making direct connections. Did you hear about the grid of PV (photovoltaic) cells with electrodes going right into the retina that they've been implanting in the eyes of people made sightless by retina damage? The test units were only 16 elements in a 4x4 grid but it's an analog signal into the eye, it's only monochrome but that's enough to
  • "Wiring like this could be woven into stretchy sports clothing and used to connect up sensors that monitor athletic performance."

    With the tight restriction on performance enhancing drugs in the Olympics and now mainstream sports, how will this possibly be allowed?

    And even if it was legalized, how much stretching can the body take before succumbing to injury?

    • Re:Use in sports? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by PhilippeT (697931) <<moc.liamg> <ta> <teppilihp>> on Monday March 15 2004, @11:04AM (#8568729)
      Ummm how about we use this to monitor all the athleets to see if any are using "performance enhancing drugs". it's a monitoring not enhancing thing
    • It's not really a drug that artificially enhances performance I don't think. I guess perhaps it's a more accurate way of doing things like monitoring heartbeat, getting the best workout and such. Athletes such as divers use machines to measure lung capacity and gradually work on how long they can hold their breath (to be brief). I think this opens the field up to even more precise measuring overall. And it could also be used as a safety tool for patients in therapy.
    • make you wonder if that new full body suit by Speedo that reduces drag is going to be allowed in competition...
      -

  • Prior art (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 15 2004, @11:01AM (#8568700)
    Perhaps the bendy straw people should sue.

  • Whoa... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Bluesman (104513) on Monday March 15 2004, @11:05AM (#8568731) Homepage
    "The wires can stretch to over half their original length."

    Is it me, or does this violate some law of grammar, physics, or both?

    • Re:Whoa... (Score:4, Funny)

      by avendesora (687006) on Monday March 15 2004, @11:08AM (#8568775)
      Doesn't violate those laws, just streches them out a bit :-)
      • it's just plain bad grammer i hope that or the words "one and a" half "times" were left out.

        Or perhaps they left out one word:
        "The wires can stretch over half again their original length."
        It's just bad writing no matter how you look at it.

  • IC (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Raptorman2k (631638) on Monday March 15 2004, @11:07AM (#8568765) Journal
    I wonder if this could help patients with I.C. It's rather painful and if the "new nerves" can be made to ignore certain impulses...that'd be very beneficial. Very intriguing, anyway

  • Excersize control? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by toygeek (473120) on Monday March 15 2004, @11:08AM (#8568773) Journal
    Excersize control: imagine your DVD playing the workout tape, and a machine monitoring your muscles as you work out. The DVD says "You need to work harder on your abs, the muscles aren't working hard enough". THAT would be cool. I know I could use it.
    • A big share of what personal trainers do is help clients understand how to "get at" areas -- how the burn should feel if you're working your lateral obliques or whatever.

      But, you know, it's you who feels that burn, brought to you by the human nervous system. And I'm not sure you wouldn't need the trainer to help you attach the wires from your DVD to your abs... So where's the gain?

      Seriously, maybe you'd like to interact with a fit young man or woman from the gym rather than the Magnavox repair guy? I kn

  • Reporters can use over half their minds! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Zarf (5735) on Monday March 15 2004, @11:08AM (#8568776) Journal
    Caption from Graphic:The wires can stretch to over half their original length.

    Elsewhere, cars were noticed to speed up to over half their original speed! Proof readers were able to increase their accuracy to over half their original accuracy! I increased my IQ to over half it's original size!

  • Amazing.. (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Science discovery: Springs are spring-like, also some metal conducts electricity. Quick someone grab a patent!

  • Polymer confusion (Score:4, Interesting)

    by manganese4 (726568) on Monday March 15 2004, @11:18AM (#8568873)
    As another example of the article being poorly put together: The article states "The usual way to make stretchable conductors is to embed metal particles in a rubbery polymer. But the particles tend to separate when the material is stretched, causing the electrical conductivity to plummet."

    But the research in the end use a polymer which I assume would have to be rubbery in order to strech with the spring.
    " Instead of fashioning the gold wires into helical springs, however, they gave them a flat, oscillating shape, like a meandering river, since this is easier to make. They manufactured them by electroplating gold onto a sheet of silver, surrounding the wires with polymer and then stripping the silver away."

    Admittedly metal particles and metal wires are slightly different but a wire is simply a structure made up of particles.
    • This is an inaccurate breakdown of semantics; the intent with the use of "particles" here is to mean independent non-bonded portions of the material which have to remain in physical contact with one another for the charge to be propagated, whereas a "wire" is a single contiguous covalent bond.

  • A step ahead (Score:5, Interesting)

    by GillBates0 (664202) on Monday March 15 2004, @11:20AM (#8568885) Homepage Journal
    I, for one, am waiting for the day when we will not require hardware to be made from metals and other hard substances.

    Most devices/machines today depend heavily on a motors/engines/circuits that are not usually flexible and need to maintain a rigid structure. Sure, we try to cover/encapsulate these devices in a pleasing exterior (car bodies, plastic casings etc) in order to protect the hardware and us from the dangerous interiors.

    Imagine cars made up of soft cushiony/rubbery material, which bounces back to absorb a collision...the metal body can dent in and absorb the force of the impact, but it works only against collisions against other cars/hard objects -- not against collisions with humans/animals and other "soft" substances.

    Ofcourse, we could have a soft covering for cars, made of a cushiony substance, but the problem has been embedding circuits/machinery in the soft exteriors, because they tend to bend and damage the interiors.

    Nature has found the perfect way to create organs/pumps/filters/wires which are made out of soft tissue, and is malleable enough to survive severe tension/distortion and bending.

    Here's to hoping that one day we will be able to create soft fuzzy machines which won't be so hard on our water-bag bodies.

    • I, for one, am waiting for the day when we will not require hardware to be made from metals and other hard substances.

      Hard waiting for that.

      Imagine cars made up of soft cushiony/rubbery material, which bounces back to absorb a collision...the metal body can dent in and absorb the force of the impact, but it works only against collisions against other cars/hard objects -- not against collisions with humans/animals and other "soft" substances.

      So collisions with humans will properly make the human bounce

    • Saying that nature has found the perfect way is both touching and incorrect. Nature has found evolution, which is something you can find simply because it's a sort of law (it would be amusing to discover tomorrow that we are all full of tiny intelligent subatomic life forms which are in the active process of redesigning us to fit their needs or something) and which requires extremely long time scales and dramatic climatic events to do any serious work. Intelligence allows us to carry out deliberate function

  • Finally! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sbma44 (694130) on Monday March 15 2004, @11:21AM (#8568895)
    Wires that bend! Great job on the breakthrough, guys.

    Seriously though, this sounds fine for integrating electronics into fabrics, but the "artificial nerve" idea conjures images on Christopher Reeve leaping up and tap dancing. This invention doesn't sound like it has any therapeutic uses that a normal wire doesn't. Perhaps users of vagus nerve stimulators or other devices requiring in vivo wiring could be a little more physically vigorous without worrying about things pulling or breaking... but I have my doubts about even that.

  • If my Slinky taught me anything . . . (Score:5, Funny)

    by 93,000 (150453) on Monday March 15 2004, @11:23AM (#8568913)
    One kink and it's trash can city.
  • This might be the breakthrough the BION folks could use to advance their research [vard.org].
  • The flexible circuits, built by using gold springs...

    Wow. Just what we needed. Yet another use for Gold. You know, it being so damn plentiful and all. I was just saying to myself, as I threw away another gold can of soda, "I sure how they find a use for this stuff, because if not, Gold doesn't oxidize or break down very easily, and it will burst our landfills if we don't start a recycling program!" Maybe all those out-of-work gold miners can finally feel useful again, and not be he butt of environmentalist hate.

    Why don't they ever find a great new way to use garbage?

  • Wow... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Xepherys2 (174396) <xepherys AT xepherys DOT net> on Monday March 15 2004, @11:27AM (#8568946) Homepage
    I'm feeling like I could be the 6 trillion dollar man any year now... between this, powered exoskeletal legs [slashdot.org], BrainGate computer hacker upgrades [slashdot.org], and health-enhancing contact lenses [slashdot.org], I'll be a super sapper in no time. I wonder how much of this my beloved US Army has actually looked into.

  • that isn't how it works (Score:4, Interesting)

    by blair1q (305137) on Monday March 15 2004, @11:36AM (#8569039) Journal
    are they going to coat them in extensible insulator, too?

    and every crush-injury will destroy them

    these guys need ome more requirements analysis

  • Great (Score:3, Funny)

    by An-Unnecessarily-Lon (761026) on Monday March 15 2004, @11:39AM (#8569061) Journal
    How long till I have to upgrade/patch the OS on my underwear?
    • How long till I have to upgrade/patch the OS on my underwear?

      If you have to patch your underwear, it's already too late.
  • Maybe they can develop nerves strong enough to let me survive my mother asking for computer help.
  • From the article:

    "the researchers estimate that the wires should be able to withstand several thousand cycles of extension and contraction."

    That's no where NEAR what would be needed for any of the applications they mention. For example, at 70 beats per minute your heart beats 100,800 times per day. Assuming each step a runner takes covers 3 feet (very approximate here), then a "cycle" (back to starting configuration) is 6 ft. That's 880 "cycles" per mile. A single 6 mile run is therefore over 5000 cycles.

    Several thousand "cycles of extension and contraction" is not even close to enough for any real world app. Who wants to have that internal heart monitor replaced several times each day? How about that high-tech single use "smart" sweatshirt?

    These will need to be in the 100's of thousands to millions of cycles for their lifespan before they have any real utility.

    • Re:Not ready for the real world (Score:5, Interesting)

      by SB9876 (723368) on Monday March 15 2004, @12:32PM (#8569608)
      The expected lifetime of these wires will be heavily dependent upon the total strain they encounter in the duty cycle. Basically, it depends upon whether the deformation of the gold is in the elastic or plastic portion of the deformation curve.

      Small deformations just cause the atoms in the gold (or any other material) to get closer or further apart. This is elastic deformation and can be done about infinity + 1 times before the metal breaks. eg: you can slightly flex a paper clip until doomsday and it is largely unaffected.

      Larger deformations actually cause the atoms to start moving around, changing places in the atomic lattice structure to accomodate the strain. This is primarily accomplished by the movement of defects and dislocations through the material. This is plastic deformation and each plastic deformation lowers the lifetime of the material. eg: if you take a paper clip and start seriously bending it, in a few cycles, the part you're bending breaks off.

      I have no idea what the threshhold is between plastic and elastic deformation in these wires is but it should be possible to design devices where the flex wires are in the elastic deformation regime most of the time. Eg: a smart shirt would have flex wires designed to be in the elastic regime when you're skipping around, swinging your arms, whistling show tunes. However, when you trip over a comatose mime and fall into an open storm serwer, the wires would be plastically deformed but won't break like conventional electrodes would in the same situation. Thus giving us essential data to force passage of the mime prevention act of 2008.

  • Muscle Wire (Score:4, Interesting)

    by crapnutassneck (243159) * on Monday March 15 2004, @11:59AM (#8569278) Homepage
    Sounds related to "Muscle Wire" special wires used in a field of robotics called "BEAM" to cause movement without motors. Basically they are wires made of different metals fused together so that they react to electrical charge by contracting. Some really cool insect bots made from them can be found here: http://www.solarbotics.net/bestiary/2502_walker_2m ot_gal.html Muscle Wire: Muscle Wires are thin, highly processed strands of a nickel-titanium alloy called Nitinol - a type of Shape Memory Alloy that can assume radically different forms or "phases" at distinct temperatures. However, when conducting an electric current, the wire heats and changes to a much harder form that returns to the "unstretched" shape - the wire shortens in length with a usable amount of force.

  • Sounds like inferior cephalopod nerves to me (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ianscot (591483) on Monday March 15 2004, @12:00PM (#8569305)
    Your nervier (brainier) mullosks have amazing nerve fibers. They get used for experiments all the time because they're just huge, big enough to place electrodes in the axons and measure voltage changes.

    Guess flexible wiring is more pleasant to be strapped into than a squid or a cuttlefish, though I doubt it'd be as fast. Cephalopods have very fast nervous systems, they're lightning quick partly as a result.

    • Re:Sounds like inferior cephalopod nerves to me (Score:4, Informative)

      by SB9876 (723368) on Monday March 15 2004, @12:18PM (#8569489)
      Actually, cephalopod nerves aren't that amazing. They're no faster that than the nerves in your body. It's just that cephalopods never developed myelinated nerves. Myselin insulates the nerve and allows for much faster signal propogation. The large size of cephalopod nerves is simply an alternate way to get higher transmission speeds.

      Either way, nerves only transmit at a few hundred miles an hour. Even assuming these flex wires aren't as conductive as a bulk gold wire, you're still looking at a transmission speed at a significant fraction of c.

      Silicon and metal wiring operates at speeds millions of times higher than biological nervous systems.

  • Brilliant! And on the patent app, call it...! (Score:3, Funny)

    by bbc22405 (576022) on Monday March 15 2004, @12:15PM (#8569455)
    It's the cord from a telephone handset.
    Now why didn't they think of that decades ago?
    Oh, wait, they did.
    Nevermind.

    Yeah, yeah, I know. It's FLAT. So maybe they've reinvented ramen noodles?

  • yeah.. anyone else.. (Score:3, Funny)

    by Cynikal (513328) on Monday March 15 2004, @12:33PM (#8569616) Homepage
    Anyone else horrified by the thought of this? i mean the first thing i thought of was the jack to my headphones, how every pair maybe lasts 2 weeks before either channel starts going out, or gets huge static.

    just happily walking down the street someday with your new artificial leg, and all of a sudden the "nerves" give out and you take a face dive.. or in the case of the static, you could have the physical equivalent to tourettes; standing in line at the bank when all of a sudden your arm goes and punches the guy in front of you in the back of the head, and then yourself in the face a few times.. gives a new meaning to frayed nerves..

    most metals just dont last long with a large amount of torsion. (for lack of a better word)

  • I can see it now.... (Score:3, Funny)

    by warlockgs (593818) on Monday March 15 2004, @01:39PM (#8570406)
    "Boy, you've got some nerve!" "You like it? I just had it grafted in this morning"
  • or else that webserver would be screaming in pain right now.
    • I thought we had things like beer, cocaine, methamphetamines, etc that provided those artificial muscles?

      • Re:Um... (Score:4, Informative)

        by ajlitt (19055) on Monday March 15 2004, @11:30AM (#8568979) Homepage
        We've had them for many years. It's called NiTiNOL. Nitinol is a metal alloy that, when used in wires, constricts when current is passed through it (heating phase) and stretches when it is idle (cooling phase). This is also the same material that those bend-proof wire glasses frames are made of. See http://www.dynalloy.com/AboutNitinol.html for just one manufacturer's info page.
    • Hmm, I could see this as a BIG thing for social studies, however. Sure, from a required standpoint it's horrible, but it'd never fly. From a science standpoint.

      I'd love to see experiments done where volunteers wear clothing (shoes, hats, socks, pants, underwear, shirts) with this type of thing embedded to collect data. This could be SO useful...

      * Wear and tear points in clothing. Wear do different clothing styles rub against someone, potentially uncomfortably, depending on the body shape and size.

      * hot/cold comfort... Where does the wearer get hotter, colder based on wear of certain overcoats, garments and standard clothing

      * posture studies... how do people really sit, stand, skip and run? once again, by body shape, age, race, culture, locale

      * interaction studies... check for nervousness and pulse rate and the like based on social interaction. This could be done with wires and straps and such, but those things also impose tehmselves on wearers. THis could be done "on the sly" like the driving studies about how much people pay attention, when they THINK it's about seeing how they react to traffic and road conditions. (can't find a link... if someone knows of one, post it... interesting read).

      I'm sure there are many other ideas out there for such things in the study of human nature. This is a tpoic that gets overlooked far too often.
    • The reason that you see gold being used for this kind of stuff is that it's easy to work with. If you try and electroplate copper, you've got to worry about various oxides forming and all sorts of other junk. This can be prevented through careful control of your electroplating conditions. However, in the sort of rapid prototyping conditions that these researchers are working in, it's much simpler to just use gold and not worry about it.

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