For millions of years, electric eels have navigated lightless waters by reading the invisible fields their own bodies generate — a form of perception that requires neither eyes nor touch. Researchers at Xidian University have now translated this ancient biological logic into a fluoropolymer sensor capable of giving machines a similar awareness, allowing robots to identify the material, texture, and shape of nearby objects without making contact. Published in Advanced Materials, the work represents a quiet but significant expansion of how machines might come to understand the physical world — n