When the Chinese invented gunpowder round about the 800s, they founded one half of the science of chemistry, namely bangs, the other half of course being stinks. 

They quickly applied it to warfare, both as an explosive in bombs, and as a propellant in rockets.  It remained the explosive for about a millennium, but in the 19th century demands both from the military and from industry created a demand for new explosive.unpowder was a low explosive which burns swiftly rather than detonates.  

(Sensors in the skin - does that sound like Frank Sinatra singing?)

Of the professors at Reading University, perhaps the one with the highest media profile is Kevin Warwick, well known for planting microchips inside himself as signalling devices. However, it seems that nature, as so often happens, got there first.