Researchers have created an artificial skin that is capable of reacting to pain just like real human skin. The goal is to improve on prosthetics, allow for better alternatives to skin grafts, and even to "augment or compensate human skin for the development of realistic humanoids," as the team from RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, writes in its paper published in the journal Advanced intelligent Systems today. The pain-sensing device mimics the nerve pathways that connect the receptors in the skin to the brain to replicate the human body's extremely fast feedback response. "Skin is our body's largest sensory organ, with complex features designed to send rapid-fire warning signals when anything hurts," research lead Madhu Bhaskaran and co-author of the paper, said in a statement. "We're sensing things all the time through the skin but our pain response only kicks in at a certain point, like when we touch something too hot or too sharp," he explained.