Epidermal Electronics

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For doctors, monitoring physical characteristics like heart rate and brain activity through the skin can be complicated and invasive. A new paper published this week in Science describes how new small, flexible devices designed to mimic human skin may make these measurements easier. The devices -- thinner than a human hair and analogous to common, temporary transfer tattoos -- are far less invasive than the usual approaches to rigging electronic sensors to the skin, which can involve adhesives, wires or cables. Kim et al. suggest that these devices have applications ranging from physiological monitoring and treatment to human-machine interfaces and game controllers.