You know what they say – if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. The human skin has done a pretty great job over the years when it comes to keeping diseases and germs out of the body, while helping regulate our body’s temperature by sweating right after we start to work those muscle groups, but will science be able to augment what has been working just fine all this while? The idea of a bionic skin has also led to a new kind of thermometer. University of Illinois researcher John Rogers has developed this particular electronic thermometer which does resemble a wafer-thin postage stamp that comes complete with a barcode of sorts that have been imprinted on it.
This gold tattoo sensor, if you will, will then be attached to the skin using a water-soluble adhesive, where it will get to work by monitoring your body temperature in an accurate manner, down to two one-thousandths of a degree. This particular level of sensitivity would mean it has made the jump to be on par with thermal infrared cameras, and those tend to cost $250,000 a pop. Rogers’ version, however, is a whole lot more affordable, costing just pennies where the materials required are concerned. Not only that, it can also measure body temperature over an extended period of time for different diagnostic purposes.
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