Chinese scientist produces new intelligent nanosuit

In the US science-fiction movie After Earth, protagonist Kitai Raige wears a magical suit. The suit, normally brown and scaly, turns beige when Kitai is cold. When he is bitten by a poisonous insect, the suit turns white.

Now, the once-fictional concept has come true. At the third International Conference on Nanoenergy and Nanosystems in Beijing, Wang Zhonglin, an academician at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, introduced one of its many inventions - an intelligent suit - that has functions similar to Kitai's.

Intelligent suits, fitted with large sensors made of woven material, can detect temperature, chemical balance, blood pressure and other indicators of a person's health status. By wireless transmission, those signals can be sent to a cellphone, computer or even to a doctor far away, so the wearer can be monitored anytime and anywhere, Wang said.