While stringing a shirt with tiny lights is one potential use for the thread, a more likely use is for clothes that detect airborne allergens or human blood, or for gloves that can manipulate touch screens. An entire shirt doesn't have to be dipped in carbon nanotubes; just a few threads need be woven in. This efficiency, along with increasingly cheap ways to produce carbon nanotubes, should help keep the cost down. "If you want to make a whole shirt from that type of cotton, it may be expensive," said Kotov. "But then again, some cotton shirts cost a substantial amount, so I don't believe it will be cost prohibitive." The cloth, of which there is now roughly one square foot, still looks and feels like cotton, said Kotov. "What we have right now is very much like the fabric you find on jeans." The ease and sophistication of the technique is what appeals most to Juan Hinestroza, an assistant professor in the Fiber Science and Apparel Design Department at Cornell University. "It's a combination of a natural material and a synthetic material that is very simple but also quite functional," said Hinestroza. "I think the implications of smart and interactive clothing are huge." Hinestroza expects that electrically conductive, nanotube-based clothing could be found on store shelves within a few years. That should be plenty of time to answer questions about the safety of carbon nanotubes in such close and prolonged contact with human skin. "All this is conditioned on the fact that carbon nanotubes are benign and biocompatable," said Kotov. "The question is still not completely resolved, but lots of published research says that as a solid material, carbon nanotubes are very benign."
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