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Clothing is so yesterday. I mean, really, what can it do? It can’t pick up sound, or beep at us if something’s wrong. Or can it? M.I.T. researchers say they’ve developed a fiber¹ that would allow clothing to eventually do those things. Their study is in the journal Nature Materials.

A big key to the fiber is a plastic commonly used in microphones. Its particular molecular² structure involves a lopsided arrangement of fluorine atoms on one side and hydrogen atoms on the other. That asymmetry³ makes the plastic piezoelectric: it changes shape when it encounters an electric field.

So any electric current will then cause the fibers⁴ to vibrate. The fibers could act as a microphone or a speaker, depending on whether the vibrations⁵ were being recorded or amplified⁶.

The clothing mic could capture speech, sure. But it could also monitor health by detecting almost imperceptible sounds from the body. Sounds like blood flow, which could make a shirt a 24-hour blood-pressure monitor. So maybe someday, your clothes will say: “I detect a rise in blood pressure. Please sit down. Machine wash me…”

Thanks for the minute for Scientific American’s 60-Second Science. I’m Cynthia Graber.

"Only non-chlorine bleach⁷ should be used when needed. Tumble me dry ... "