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UCSD Researchers Develop Biotech Underwear

by Matthew Zuras on May 2, 2010 at 01:00 PM

Your underwear already holds plenty of secrets, ones that we'd rather not even mention here. (The brave can check out this fascinating and disturbing analysis of undie contents.) Your skivvies are about to get a bit more knowledgeable, if a study from U.C. San Diego portends the future of intimates. Researchers from Taiwan and the California university have been working on a way to print electrochemical sensors directly onto fabric in hopes that the close contact of clothing that was embedded with such sensors could monitor your body for undue physiological changes. And they went with a pair of men's briefs as a prototype, because of "its potential for direct sweat monitoring."

The researchers were attempting to tackle the problem of sensors getting warped and maimed through clothing's daily use, and briefs obviously get more action than a scarf does. Amperometric sensors were then applied to the undergarments using a screen-printing process, and voilà: biotech underwear.

Well, sort of. To be clear, separate instruments are necessary to measure whatever it is that that the embedded sensors are detecting. (Your underwear will not be its own stand-alone tricorder anytime soon.) The goal of the study was to see if sensors could be embedded in underwear and still do their job after normal wear. The positive results suggest the development of clothing that could be used to detect alcohol in drivers, for example, but that's still a little ways off. You don't need to start checking your briefs for Big Brother's watchful eye just yet. [From: Ecouterre, via: Boing Boing]

Tags: amperometrics, biotech, briefs, medical, sensors, top, UcSanDiego, underwear

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