Most self-healing materials so far have been designed to repair themselves in response to external stimuli such as light, temperature and electricity. These non-autonomous self-healing systems differ from living tissue in that they still need some form of intervention before they can heal, and the goal is to create materials that can fix themselves without any help. For that, conductivity is a key property. Autonomous conductive self-healing materials have been created, but they haven't performed very well in practical applications due to lack of characteristics like stretchability, pressure sensitivity, bulk conductivity or overall mechanical performance. But A team of researchers at the University of Manitoba have come up with a new method of designing self-healing materials to make them mechanically stable, conductive and autonomously self-healing - as well as 3D printable. Learn more at 3DPrint.com: http://3dprint.com/180104/3d-printab...ling-hydrogel/