Synthetic "Smart" Skin

February 20, 2009

What if we could  upgrade our epidermis and dermis layers, replacing the skin nature gave us with a synthetic “smart” skin imbedded with a network of nanobots and sensors?

What if that artificial exterior would not only be impervious to the sun’s rays, aging and routine wear-and-tear, but also would artificially enhance our senses and perhaps even give us the ability to alter our external appearance based on mood, setting or fashion?

Smart skin might offer some wonderful benefits. We could say goodbye to wrinkles and crow’s feet, and stay out on the beach all day without a trace of sunburn. Diseases such as psoriasis and skin melanoma  would be relegated to old medical textbooks.

With richer tactile sensitivity, we’d experience more pleasure and have the dexterity to perform delicate tasks. The painful art of tattooing would become obsolete, because we could instruct our imbedded nanobots to display whatever words or image we choose — and, depending on our whim, to change them or even make them move, in the fashion of the video-like body art in Ray Bradbury’s 1951 book The Illustrated Man.  Racial prejudice might vanish, since skin color would become a matter of choice.

On the flip side, getting the equivalent of a full-thickness skin graft  for your entire body might  necessitate a difficult, exceedingly tricky operation, though future advances in surgical robotics could make it a lot simpler and safer.

Assuming it all goes smoothly, smart skin may create all sorts of problems for our society. The entire cosmetics industry would go out of business overnight, and dermatologists would have to go back to school to get engineering degrees. Being able to alter one’s exterior — and change it again at will — would make visual identification unreliable, which in turn could make it exceedingly difficult for courts to convict criminals based on eyewitness testimony.  Moreover, it would require us to radically rethink the link between appearance and identity, and alter our very sense of self.

I found this idea while delving into the subject of transhumanism, a futurist movement that envisions using technology to modify the human body, as a way both of freeing us from infirmities such as disease and aging, and of bestowing upon us new abilities. Think of transhumanism  as a DIY version of evolution (or perhaps as the rough equivalent of American Chopper,  using live human bodies instead of motorcycles). Here’s a quote from the World Transhumanist Association’s official manifesto:

Transhumanists advocate the moral right for those who so wish to use technology to extend their mental and physical (including reproductive) capacities and to improve their control over their own lives. We seek personal growth beyond our current biological limitations.

One of the guiding lights of transhumanism is Natasha Vita-More a philosopher/graphic artist who’s dreamed up a blueprint of sorts for what she calls the Primo Posthuman, whose body redesign offers “extended performance and modern style.” Indeed, perhaps Primo’s most stylish feature is its enhanced exterior:

Its outer sheath is primed with smart skin which vanguards practical designs purposes for communication. The model structure is composed of assembled massive molecular cytes or cells connected together to form the outer fabric of the body. The smart skin is engineered to repair, remake, and replace itself. It contains nanobots throughout the epidermal and dermis to communicate with the brain to determine the texture and tone of its surface. It transmits enhanced sensory data to the brain on an ongoing basis. The smart skin learns how and when to renew itself, alerts the outside world of the disposition of the person; gives specific degrees of the body’s temperature from moment to moment; and reflects symbols, images, colors and textures across its contours. It is able to relate the percentages of toxins in the environment and the extract radiation effects of the sun.

Before you dismiss Vita-More’s notion as sci-fi mumbo jumbo, consider this: In recent years, actual scientists have made remarkable strides in developing artificial skin, using exotic materials such as plastics infused with carbon nanotubes. They’ve envisioned it both as a replacement for the actual skin used in grafts for burn patients and others who suffer skin destroying injuries, and as a  covering for next-generation prosthetic limbs that will enable users to feel a light touch, shake hands, cook and type naturally. (From IEEE Spectrum Online, an engineering journal, here’s a 2008 article on one such project at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.) In Japan, researchers are developing a rubber-nanotube combination that may serve as an “e-skin” for robots, enabling them to feel temperature and texture like humans do.

So what do you think? Should we consider someday replacing our skin with a synthetic alternative with enhanced capabilities? Or should we stick to Neutrogena moisturizers? Express your opinion below.

Comments

[Mahavishnu]

Moving tattoos. I could dig it!

[Mothra]

I think it will be huge for burn victims. I guess I just think of it in terms of people who have some sort of disfigurement--cancer, cleft faces, bad scars, severe acne. Though it would be pretty cool to have skin that changes colors. (Remember Al Jolson and the book "Black Like Me"?) It's hard to conceive of animated tattoos though.

[Robin Carmichael]

I think this invention could really change our conception of beauty, for good or ill.

[Robin Carmichael]

What was the line from that song by Hole? "miles and miles of perfect skin?"

[Riot Grrrl]

Actually, it's called "Reasons To Be Beautiful." Here's the lyrics:

Love hangs herself with the bedsheets in her cell
threw myself on the fires for you
10 good reasons to stay alive
10 good reasons that I can't find
Oh, give me a reason to be beautiful
so sick in his body so sick in his soul
oh give me one reason to be beautiful
oh and everything I am
Love hates you
I live my life in ruins for you
and for all your secrets kept
I squashed the blossom and the blossom's dead
oh give me reason to be beautiful
so sick in his body so sick in his soul
oh and I will make myself so beautiful
oh and everything I am
Miles and miles of perfect skin
I swear I do, I fit right in
my love burns through everything
I cannot breathe
Miles and miles of perfect skin
I swear, I said, I fit right in
I fit right in your perfect skin
I cannot breathe
hey, baby, take it all the way...down
hey baby taste me anyway
oh you were born
so pretty oh summer
babe we'll never know
and fading like a rose....
Give me a reason to be beautiful
so sick in his body so sick in his soul
I'll give you my body just sell me your soul
oh and everything I am will be bought and sold
oh and everything I am will turn hard and cold
and they say in the end
You'll get bitter just like them
and they steal you heart away
when the fire goes out you better learn to fake
it's better to rise the fade away
hey you were right
named a star for your eyes
did you freeze did you weep
turn to gold baby, sleep
hey honey mine
I was there all the time
and I weep at your feet
and it rains and rains

[Caffeine Driven Stress Magnet]

I wonder if synthetic skin could really look lifelike, or whether it's going to look more like naugahyde.

[Ricardo Montelban]

Or "fine Corinthian leather." :)

[Dede Tevie]

i think this is really cool
but wouldn't it hurt our skin
since its used to being exposed?
any way the tatoo sounds really cool
you won't have to worry about needles
going through your skin or not liking the
tatoo later in the future. this would also
really help people that have skin deseases or
their skin burned.

[Keith Hyland]

I think that for this to be come popular as an elective operation, they'd have to find a way to replace your skin relatively painlessly. That probably is a bigger challenge than developing a synthetic skin replacement.

[Natural Man]

I just can't imagine somebody having their skin removed and replaced, but people do weird things.

[Maurice]

Interesting that nobody has picked up on one significant effect of artifical skin: If you wanted to, you could change your race. That could change everything in American society.

[Andrew Maynard]

So much potential, so many problems... Remember that human skin is incredibly sophisticated, and we are a long, long way off replicating what biology achieves already. And even when we can get a good match, interfacing with the body to get similar functionality will be tough.

I'm sure this research will drive innovation, but for now I'm sticking to my own skin, warts and all :-)

[Francie]

I wonder if you could embed thousands of tiny LCDs in your artificial skin and turn into a walking HDTV set.

[Someone Reading Articles]

This artificial skin does have its benefits, such as skin diseases, burns, etc., but i feel that technology is going across the line, where even if want it, you should not get. For example, eating candy. You'll love the taste of it, but it'll give you cavities. This wasn't the best example, but you get what im saying.

[Patrick Kiger]

I do get your point. Keep this in mind: People already are modifying their bodies with hair transplants, rhinoplasty, liposuction and even skin bleaching (remember Michael Jackson?) What I'm trying to do is get everyone to think about where that line is.

[Kain]

F*#k the line! I would do this the second they can put me under and put it on me! Sweet! Why should we allow our simple biology to hold us back? I'm all for improving what evolution has given us whether its with direct hardware or genetic manipulation. The future belongs to cyborgs! lol Resistance is futile.

[Squeaky]

yeah, I agree. If we can improve on nature, we ought to.