Scientists Covered a Robot Finger In Living Human Skin (newscientist.com) 51
An anonymous reader quotes a report from New Scientist: Robots can now be covered in living skin grown from real human cells to make them look more like us. As robots increasingly take on roles as nurses, care workers, teachers and other jobs that involve close personal contact, it is important to make them look more human so we feel comfortable interacting with them, says Shoji Takeuchi at the University of Tokyo in Japan. At the moment, robots are sometimes coated in silicone rubber to give them a fleshy appearance, but the rubber lacks the texture of human skin, he says.
To make more realistic-looking skin, Takeuchi and his colleagues bathed a plastic robot finger in a soup of collagen and human skin cells called fibroblasts for three days. The collagen and fibroblasts adhered to the finger and formed a layer similar to the dermis, which is the second-from-top layer of human skin. Next, they gently poured other human skin cells called keratinocytes onto the finger to recreate the upper layer of human skin, called the epidermis. The resulting 1.5-millimeter-thick skin was able to stretch and contract as the finger bent backwards and forwards. As it did this, it wrinkled like normal skin, says Takeuchi. "It is much more realistic than silicone."
The robot skin could also be healed when it was cut by grafting a collagen sheet onto the wound. However, the skin began to dry out after a while since it didn't have blood vessels to replenish it with moisture. In the future, it may be possible to incorporate artificial blood vessels into the skin to keep it hydrated, as well as sweat glands and hair follicles to make it more realistic, says Takeuchi. It should also be possible to make different skin colors by adding melanocytes, he says. The researchers now plan to try coating a whole robot in the living skin. The research has been published in the journal Matter.
To make more realistic-looking skin, Takeuchi and his colleagues bathed a plastic robot finger in a soup of collagen and human skin cells called fibroblasts for three days. The collagen and fibroblasts adhered to the finger and formed a layer similar to the dermis, which is the second-from-top layer of human skin. Next, they gently poured other human skin cells called keratinocytes onto the finger to recreate the upper layer of human skin, called the epidermis. The resulting 1.5-millimeter-thick skin was able to stretch and contract as the finger bent backwards and forwards. As it did this, it wrinkled like normal skin, says Takeuchi. "It is much more realistic than silicone."
The robot skin could also be healed when it was cut by grafting a collagen sheet onto the wound. However, the skin began to dry out after a while since it didn't have blood vessels to replenish it with moisture. In the future, it may be possible to incorporate artificial blood vessels into the skin to keep it hydrated, as well as sweat glands and hair follicles to make it more realistic, says Takeuchi. It should also be possible to make different skin colors by adding melanocytes, he says. The researchers now plan to try coating a whole robot in the living skin. The research has been published in the journal Matter.
Next up: Terminators. (Score:5, Funny)
So, this is how Terminators get started.
Re:Next up: Terminators. (Score:5, Funny)
C'mon, we all know what's next. Hint: "It is much more realistic than silicone."
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That's no skin off my nose.
Re:Next up: Terminators. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's been true for decades that porn is the driver of new technologies.
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as long as scientists don't just focus on hairloss and erection pills... /owmyballs
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I am not too sure, a degree of sanitation is often required for commercial products. While person to person is dirty, if you are going to get a product you want something a little cleaner.
Otherwise the company will have some legal battles to deal with.
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I know a few people who have a few of those toys. Trust me, no matter what condition those tools are in, they won't be the dirtiest thing in the bedroom.
Why do you think they need those toys?
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It's worse than that. Every incel is just waiting to get this thing up their arse, but you know the corporations are going to monetize the hell out of it. Their robot girlfriends will require a microtransaction for just about everything. Without the DLC that finger is pretty much the only bit that's going to work.
Re: Next up: Terminators. (Score:2)
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Yes, but can they talk English with an Austrian accent?
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Yes, but can they talk English with an Styrian accent?
FTFY.
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The only implausible thing about Terminators is that they seem to be mostly male and flat chested.
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Well, you can also make the argument that having harsh Austrian accents does not seem like it would make them more sympathetic to people in America, which is where we normally see them operating. On the other hand, a foreign accent might actually be an effective disguise. There's sure to be an uncanny valley element to Terminators, in behavior, speech, mannerisms, etc. that humans might be able to pick up on. Giving them foreign accents might be good camouflage. Traits that might be seen as inhuman might si
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Yeah, I don't see them being great for pitched warfare, but they'd make a lot more sense as "cleanup crew". Taking out the fortified defenses is only the first step towards extermination - you still have to hunt down the individuals. And a human shape is near-optimal for navigating environments designed for humans (buildings, bunkers, etc), plus is able to scavenge weapons and ammo from the environment rather than relying on returning to base camp to be reloaded by some sort of service drone (another role
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I'm trying to recall - was there ever any explanation as to why Skynet didn't just carpet-bomb the planet with nukes? It obviously didn't object to them on principle, so what was with all the penny-ante extermination when total eradication would have been so fast, cheap, and easy in comparison?
It's actually pretty hard to carpet bomb humanity to extinction with nukes. Despite what people say about being able to blow up the world 10X over, etc. there are just too many practical problems. Geography, for example. Even if you're blowing up the Tsar Bomba a few miles from them, people will still be pretty safe if they're on the other side of a mountain. People can hide in bunkers and caves and mostly avoid dying from the blasts. There are also many, many, many islands out there. There's the fallout, a
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Yeah, just blind bombing would be hard pressed to do it, though a modest nuke every square mile or so would go a long way towards both eradicating humanity, and poisoning the world to the point where we would be unlikely to survive. Especially with a little planning to make sure there's no "mountain shadows" to be a problem.
I'm basically thinking - the supplies to make one of those big war machines, plus a little fissile material, could make many dozens of tactical nukes. Starting out any engagement by nu
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Cyborg! (Score:2)
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Data found that compelling (Score:2)
The Borg Queen used this technology to try to turn data.
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NFN (Score:4, Funny)
Now THIS is what I call news for nerds.
Feelthy Sex Jokes Starting In... (Score:3)
Oh, never mind. At 34 minutes after the summary was posted, I'm 'WAY late to this party.
ob (Score:3)
...they then removed it from their rectum...
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...they then removed it from their rectum...
Thanks for that! I'm still chuckling...
But pray tell, how do you know the finger was up the rectum of a scientist rather than that of a research subject or a hapless undergrad?
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Umm, phrasing? (Score:2)
nt
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They need to get laid.
I posit that radical, habitually enraged feminists are the original incels.
(Honestly, the feminist cause used to be worthy before the sexual revolution ran its course, but when it reached its original goals it was pretty much time to wrap up the party and go on with life. Rather than becoming ever more radical and enraged.)
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Blade Runner units (Score:2)
So when are we going to have to start standing up blade runner units to hunt "skin jobs" that have gone rogue
Then it dies (Score:2)
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or an ever "oozing" vat of nutrients to push from the robotic skeleton.
Yay, robots that can give you a staph infection. (Score:2)
"Wrapping robots in human skin that has been grown in a lab may help us to feel more at ease when we interact with them."
Look at the picture in the article. Would that put you at ease?
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Skin is translucent - put some flesh-colored (and shaped) foam "muscle" with painted-on veins underneath, then tan up the skin a bit while flexing regularly to develop creases, it'd probably look pretty good.
Honestly though I think the "almost-human" robot designers are wasting a lot of effort for no good reason. I can see wanting something more relatable than metal/plastic mechanoids, but why exactly do you want robots that look like humans, rather than like, I don't know, maybe Gelflings? Something simi
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But aside from delighting a certain fringe group, you might also suddenly get a FNAF vibe and I would NOT like that.
Very important development! (Score:2)
This is a requirement if we want our robots to be able to go through the time machine into the past.
terminator (Score:2)
"we feel comfortable interacting with them" (Score:2)
Yeah, I mean, nothing makes me feel more comfortable than a robot hand with "real human skin" covering it. /s
Most importantly (Score:2)
Which finger?
Meanwhile 7.4 million psoriasis sufferersâ&# (Score:1)
A middle finger? (Score:2)
Asking for a friend.
Humans? (Score:1)
How about we just use humans for jobs such as "nurses, care workers, teachers and other jobs that involve close personal contact,"
Bacta (Score:2)
Couple more fingers, and Luke can start building a new light saber.