NEW YORK:

Scientists are closer to making more lifelike robots after coming up with “skin” that is just like a person’s. The skin allows the robot to detect both pressure and temperature, which means it would know when something was touching it, or when it was warm. The skin is thin enough to wrap around robot fingers, and is cheap enough to make lots of, say the scientists. As well as temperature and pressure, the skin may be able to help a robot know if it is light or dark, or even if it is noisy. Artificial skin that can feel things has been developed before, but adding temperature detection to it is something new. The scientists are from the University of Tokyo in Japan, and hope their work will improve how robots work in the real world.