Pollution-Detecting T-Shirt

Wednesday, 19 January 2011 | by Pat's Picks

Talk about an environmentally-conscious t-shirt. The New York Daily News talks to two NYU grad students who’ve created a t-shirt that detects air pollution in this morning’s paper. Fitted with a tiny carbon monoxide sensor, the shirt’s designs—a pair of lungs or a heart—turn from pink to blue when the wearer encounters pollution.

The duo is now trying to figure out a way to mass produce their product cheaply. And they’ve already started plans for a t-shirt fitted with an alcohol sensor, which would change the color of the t-shirt’s liver when the wearer was intoxicated.

The project is called Warning Signs

Check out how the shirts work. The veins on the heart turn blue when exposed to air pollution: