Scientists Craft ‘Living Skin’ for Robots, Made of Human Cells What’s happening Japanese researchers covered a robot finger with a self-healing pliable sheet made of human skin cells. Why it matters Helping robots resemble humans could improve their integration with our society. We’d like them more, trust them more and communicate with them better. What’s next The team will focus on refining their prototype to make it more sophisticated and translatable to real-world robotics. If scientists are ever to deploy realistic humanoid robots to roam our society, they’ll need to create an artificial version of every single human trait. Then they’ll have to put it all together. A daunting endeavor. But we can simplify the task by grouping things into two main categories. First up, there’s the mental facet. Things like consciousness, autonomy, imagination and perhaps even body reflexes. Second, there’s the physical stuff. Fluid movement, eye control, casual gait and, importantly, skin. Our sweaty, supple human skin is absolutely integral to our lifelike veneer. And on Thursday, in the journal Matter, Japanese scientists announced they’ve made some headway in this regard. They presented a robotic finger that’s coated with “living skin,” aka a prototype of skin made out of actual, living, human cells.