A team of MIT scientists and workers at the Rhode Island School of Design has designed a listening shirt. Yes, it may sound weird, almost from a science fiction movie, but it is totally real. It is made with a cloth with a mechanism inspired by the sense of human earwhich transforms sound vibrations into electrical signals.
The result is not uncomfortable. In fact, although it is somewhat heavier than a conventional shirt, it is much lighter than a denim jacket. And the best thing is that it has some of the most interesting applications.
On the one hand, the listening shirt can act as a loudspeaker for people with hearing problems. On the other hand, it is capable of quickly detecting heart rhythm failure of patients with heart disease and send the pertinent signals so that measures are taken as soon as possible.
Also, as if that weren’t enough, can communicate. Come on, in the future we could communicate with our loved ones through our shirts. If we continue like this BlackMirror It will end up looking more like a costumbrista series.
imitators of the sense of hearing
Broadly speaking, the human ear works from waves and electrical signals. Sound reaches it in the form of pressure waves. Once there, he makes a first stop at eardrumwhere the pressure waves transform into mechanical vibrations.
Later, these move along a chain made up of small ossiclesuntil reaching the inner ear, where the cochleawhich translates them into the language our brain reads best: electrical signals.
The authors of the study just published in Nature they thought that something similar could be achieved with a fabric. It would be an unusual use, since it is more common to use fabrics to dampen sound, not to process it. But in this case they had a few tricks up their sleeves. To begin with, they used a piezoelectric tissue. This means that it is capable of producing an electrical signal when deformed. Furthermore, it consisted of very flexible fiberscapable of deforming even with the slightest vibration produced by sound.
These special fibers were woven together with conventional threads, since the objective was that the final result would not be too far from any other fabric. With it, any garment could be made, although for now these researchers have started with a shirt that listens. But what are its applications?
A shirt that listens to watch over our health
The first tests carried out with this listening shirt show that it is capable of interpreting the electrical signals arising from a sound as slight as a silent library to the roar of a road crowded with traffic.
This gives it various applications. On the one hand, its ability to discern small variations in sound makes it a great detector of heartbeat abnormalities. Thus, patients can have a non-invasive, continuous, easy and long-term follow-up.
In fact, the first tests of this application of the shirt you hear about have been so positive that these scientists believe that the same fabric could be used to make clothes for pregnant to detect fetal heartbeats. Also, it could help people with hearing problems.
But the uses of the shirt you hear go far beyond health. Can also be used as speakerso they could be answered phone calls through the clothes.
And, finally, we must not forget that a fabric is not only used to make garments. It could also be used for other purposes. For example, as the MIT scientists explain in a statement, the tissue can be embedded in the construction materials of the spaceships to detect the impact of dust that may be harmful to the structure.
Or even add it to the walls of buildings to detect the small vibrations associated with cracks or stresses. We could literally hear if the walls start to crack. But long before it was actually detectable to the human ear. And, above all, long before it becomes dangerous.
In the future, a simple piece of cloth can take our hearing to unimaginable places. It is not just a matter of fashion.