The headline seems like an odd combo, but researchers have taken the first steps toward creating soft, flexible, sensitive skin capable of producing electronic signals that can trigger an underlying nerve response.

The material, known as e-skin, was tested on a rat model. When the e-skin was touched, nerve cells began firing in the rat's brain, triggering leg twitches. That's a long way from human use, but the hope someday is to produce e-skin that might mimic the sense of touch (and maybe more) in patients with paralysis or lost limbs.

Body of Knowledge

Among our predecessors, the big toe was used for grasping, such as when climbing trees or clinging to mom. These days, the digit is sometimes used a transplant replacement for people who have lost a thumb. Of course, in such cases, the recipient cannot be lack toes intolerant.

Get Me That, Stat!

Leprosy still infects roughly 200,000 people per year, mostly in Southeast Asia. It's been treatable for decades, but people with chronic infections still post an infection risk to others in the same household. A new clinical trial in China reports that a single dose of a tuberculosis drug effectively protected household members.

Counts

1 in 10 — Teens in survey who said they own a gun, usually a gift

4 in 10 — Teens who said they think they could find a gun

1 in 4 — Teens with depression who thought they could get a gun

20 — Percentage of high school students who report having serious thoughts of suicide

6,500 — Approximate number of teens/young adults who commit suicide each year

2 — Ranking of suicide as cause of death among people 15 to 24

Sources: Pediatrics, Pew, National Alliance on Mental Illness

Doc Talk

Rales — abnormal lung sounds that might be a sign of fluid buildup, or congestion

Mania of the Week

Melomania — a surprisingly common obsession with music. Or as the late Olivia Newton-John once crooned, "Have you never been melo?"

Best Medicine

I woke up this morning coughing badly. I think I may have pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, but it's hard to say.

Hypochondriac's Guide

In 1665, the Great (bubonic) Plague killed roughly one-quarter of all Londoners, perhaps 100,000 or more. But life back then was pretty sketchy and precarious even without pestilential rats running around, unbound.

Back then, if you lived in London — or a lot of other places — you could also die from winde (a kind of severe gastrointestinal condition); purples (possibly scurvy or a circulation disorder); livergrown (an enlarged liver); chrisomes (all forms of infant mortality); rising of the lights (pulmonary disease); timpani (swelling of the digestive tract); tissick (wasting disease of the lungs); meagrome (brain aneurysms or tumors); imposthume (swollen cysts or abscesses); head mould shot (ill-fitting skull plates in a newborn); quinsy (fatal tonsillitis); surfeit (an excess of something); French pox (syphilis, not limited to the French); blood flux (dysentery); and plannet (inexplicable mental behaviors).

Observation

"You know you're getting old when you stoop to tie your shoelaces and wonder what else you could do while you're down there." — Comedian George Burns (1896-1996)

Medical History

This week in 1978 in England, Louise Joy Brown was born using in vitro fertilization, becoming the world's first "test tube baby." Exactly five years later, the first nonhuman primate was conceived in a Petri dish — a baboon named E.T. for Embryo Transfer.

Ig Nobel Apprised

The Ig Nobel Prizes celebrate achievements that make people laugh, then think. A look at real science that's hard to take seriously, and even harder to ignore.

In 1996, the Ig Nobel Prize in biology went to Anders Baerheim and Hogne Sandvik of the University of Bergen in Norway for their report "Effect of ale, garlic, and soured cream on the appetite of leeches."

Their findings: Beer made some leeches sway their forebodies, lose their grip and fall on their backs. Leeches who consumed garlic died soon after. Possibly they were vampire leeches. Sour cream produced no reaction, proving it's an acquired taste.

Sum Body

Six behavioral signs that you need to eat, apart from all that hangriness:

1. It's hard to keep your eyes open. Drowsiness is an indicator of declining blood sugar (glucose) levels.

2. You focus on doing the easiest tasks, not the hardest. The brain consumes more energy than any other organ in the body — 20% of the total energy you use. Most of this energy comes from glucose. When it's low on fuel, brain fog and general inertia can set in.

3. This is related to item No. 2. An energy-deprived brain functions less effectively, which may result in stuttering or slurring of words — or not finding the right words to say.

4. You're experiencing tremors and dizziness.

5. Suddenly, your co-workers seem especially annoying. You become irritable and tense, largely due to higher levels of cortisol and adrenaline released due to hunger.

6. Related to item No. 5, all that cortisol and adrenaline fuels the fight-or-flight response, making you not just irritable, but likely to become quite unreasonable over minor issues.

Curtain Calls

Thomas Otway was a 17th-century English playwright who fell upon hard times and eventually found himself on the streets, begging for food (and probably pretty hangry). On April 14, 1685, a passerby recognized Otway and gave him a guinea (a coin minted in Great Britain between 1663 and 1814). Otway rushed to a baker's shop, purchased a roll and promptly choked to death while wolfing it down.

To find out more about Scott LaFee and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Photo credit: Jan Romero at Unsplash