Scientists grew living human skin around a robotic finger

[icymist]

The Terminator may be one step closer to reality.

Researchers at the University of Tokyo have built a robotic finger that, much like Arnold Schwarzenegger’s titular cyborg assassin, is covered in living human skin. The goal is to someday build robots that look like real people — albeit for more altruistic applications.

Super realistic-looking robots could more seamlessly interact with humans in medical care and service industries, say biohybrid engineer Shoji Takeuchi and his colleagues June 9 in Matter. (Whether cyborgs masked in living tissue would be more congenial or creepy is probably in the eye of the beholder.)

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/robotic-finger-human-skin-self-healing

[Auggie]

1. "Fools -- you don't know what you're doing!"*

*Guaranteed dialogue (more or less) from any mad scientist film.

[cstanleytech]

2. Interesting but considering it needs to stay in the lab it sounds like growing human skin

is more promising for burn patients than it is for any type of independent robotics.

[ReluctanceTango]

3. Not surprised at all that this came out of University of Tokyo

The Japanese government decided they would invest hard in chem/biochem, and one of the key methods of getting it off the ground was to recruit people from around the world to study those subjects at University of Tokyo. My Japanese professor knew I was a STEM major, and said the university had contacted her to contact STEM majors with Japanese language skills about applying. It was beyond tempting, because they would have provided tuition, housing and even a stipend if I would switch my major to chemistry and get my degree there.

If I could have brought my husband, I would have accepted.

[eppur_se_muova]

4. Same technology could be used in a bionic prosthesis, and IMHO more useful there.

Something like this may be necessary to add a true sense of touch to prostheses.

[Javaman]

5. hence the term, "skin jobs" from Blade Runner.

10 to 15 years from now, we will have a "robot" with living tissue.

[PXR-5]

6. I wouldn't panic yet, at least not until we have

SkyNet.

Umm, wait a minute...