Color-changing skins created for robots to react without wires, screens

Researchers at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln have developed stretchable, synthetic skins that mimic the color-changing abilities of cephalopods like squids and octopuses. These skins replicate chromatophores—pigment-filled sacs in cephalopod skin that change appearance when muscles spread the pigment—allowing the materials to dynamically alter color in response to environmental stimuli such as heat, light, pH, and humidity. Unlike traditional electronic displays, these autonomous materials operate without wires, rigid electronics, or user input, enabling soft, flexible devices that sense and react to their surroundings in real time. The technology holds significant promise for applications in soft robotics and wearable devices, where flexibility, adaptability, and water resistance are critical. By tuning the chemical composition, the skins can be programmed to respond to specific environmental triggers, potentially allowing a single wearable to monitor multiple parameters simultaneously. This innovation could replace conventional LED screens or fixed components in certain contexts, offering a new class of human-machine interfaces that display information through