With more than 1,000 nerve endings, human skin is the brain’s largest sensory connection to the outside world, providing a wealth of feedback through touch, temperature and pressure. While these complex features make skin a vital organ, they also make it a challenge to replicate.

By utilizing nanoengineered hydrogels that exhibit tunable electronic and thermal biosensing capabilities, researchers at Texas A&M University have developed a 3D-printed electronic skin (E-skin) that can flex, stretch and sense like human skin.

“The ability to replicate the sense of touch and integrate it into various technologies opens up new possibilities for human-machine interaction and advanced sensory experiences,” said Dr...

‘Hidden’ stars including a new type of elderly giant nicknamed an ‘old smoker’ have been spotted for the first time by astronomers.

The mystery objects exist at the heart of our Milky Way galaxy and can sit quietly for decades – fading almost to invisibility – before suddenly puffing out clouds of smoke, according to a new study published today in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Societ...

A protein in the immune system can be manipulated to help overcome bowel cancer, according to new research from The Australian National University (ANU). The research is published in Science Advances.

Bowel cancer claims more than 100 lives in Australia each week, yet around 90% of cases can be successfully treated if detected early.

According to lead author Dr. Abhimanu Pandey, from ANU, the protein, known as Ku70, can be activated or “turned on” like a light switch by using a combination of new and existing drugs.

“In its activated state, the protein acts like a surveillance system, detecting signs of damaged DNA in our cells,” Dr. Pandey said.

“DNA is the genetic code of life...

What happens when you expose tellurite glass to femtosecond laser light? That’s the question that Gözden Torun at the Galatea Lab at Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, in collaboration with Tokyo Tech scientists, aimed to answer in her thesis work when she made the discovery that may one day turn windows into single material light-harvesting and sensing devices. The results are published in Physical Review Applied.

Interested in how the atoms in the tellurite glass would reorganize when exposed to fast pulses of high energy femtosecond laser light, the scientists stumbled upon the formation of nanoscale tellurium and tellurium oxide crystals, both semiconducting materials etched into the glass, precisely where the glass had been exposed...