Science & Technology

Humans can detect buried objects without directly touching them

By T.K. Randall
December 10, 2025

Image: AI-generated (Midjourney) Most people will have tried digging through the sand on a beach with their bare hands at some point in their lives, but what is surprising is just how capable we actually are at detecting that something is buried without actually being able to see it or to feel it directly.

Known as 'remote touch', this skill is typically associated with shorebirds and other beach-combing animals.

In a recent study, researchers at Queen Mary University of London investigated this ability by having 12 volunteers use their hands to determine if a small cube was buried in a container of sand.

By moving their fingers through the grains, they were able to tell that the cube was in there by sensing the tiny displacements in the sand around it.The researchers also compared their accuracy with a robotic device and found that the human volunteers were 70.7% accurate while the robot was only 40% accurate.

"It's the first time that remote touch has been studied in humans and it changes our conception of the perceptual world (what is called the 'receptive field') in living beings, including humans," said study co-author Elisabetta Versace.

While our ability to find buried objects with our hands isn't particularly useful in most situations, the researchers have been looking at ways of using the study's findings to create more advanced robots with skills beyond what even our own hands can achieve.

"These insights could inform the development of advanced robots capable of delicate operations, for example locating archaeological artifacts without damage, or exploring sandy or granular terrains such as Martian soil or ocean floors," said study co-author Zhengqi Chen.

Source: Gizmodo

Tags: Sixth Sense