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Clever clothing could soon monitor your health

'Smart fabrics' could transform lives

smart fabric mit
Carla Challis
Commerce Partnerships Editor
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A team of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have developed 'smart fabrics' that could be used in clothing to monitor your health – even capable of taking your temperature and monitoring how much you sweat. The MIT team say these fabrics could be life-saving, as they'd have the ability to warn the wearer of potential health conditions – and in the time we're living right now, wouldn’t that give people a peace of mind? Headed by Professor Yoel Fink, the group is developing fibres and fabrics with computer-like properties.

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smart fabrics mit© MIT

(MIT) have developed 'smart fabrics' that could be life-saving 

"No human-made objects are more ubiquitous or exposed to more vital data than the clothes we all wear," doctoral student and lead author Gabriel Locke told MIT News. "Wouldn't it be great if we could somehow teach our fabrics to sense, store, analyse, extract and communicate this potentially useful information?"

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A host of students at MIT are already working on creating fabric computers, and they're confident that in the future, these fabrics will be constantly updated with new functions and capabilities – much like we update software in computers. For the fabrics to become a reality in everyday use, the team believe they need to develop it further to make the sensors seamless and resistant, so they can be worn for long periods of time – and to be able to be washed, too! 

clothing rail© Unsplash

The clothes will have the ability to warn the wearer of potential health conditions 

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