Gadgets are great. We're enticed to buy new ones every few years. Sometimes that's because the new features are too awesome to resist, but other times we're simply buying replacements. As cool as gadgets are, they are prone to break and hard, if not impossible, to repair.

That frustration of throwing away perfectly good technology just because it doesn't work may be history, thanks to a "self-healing" electronics developed by engineers at the University of Illinois.

This system restores electrical conductivity to a cracked circuit in less time than it takes to blink, the university reports. It does this with tiny microcapsules on top of a gold line functioning as a circuit in a chip.

"As a crack propagates, the microcapsules break open and release the liquid metal contained inside. The liquid metal fills the gap in the circuit, restoring electrical flow," reads a new release on the technology.

While this technology could find a home in gadgets, the reality is you'll still want to replace them every few years to take advantage of technological leaps. But for other uses, such a ship en route to Mars, self-healing electronics could be a life saver.

For more information, check out the news release on the study reported in the journal Advanced Materials as well as the video above with lead author Scott White, a professor of aerospace engineering.

More on self-healing tech:

• Fix scratches in a flash, literally
• Metals with memory could fix dents
• Self-healing car coating repairs scratches
• Bendy antennas could reshape electronics

John Roach is a contributing writer for msnbc.com. To learn more about him, check out his website. For more of our Future of Technology series, watch the featured video below.

Bok Yeop

University of Illinois engineers developed a pen with conductive silver ink that can write electric circuits and interconnects directly on paper and other surfaces.

Researchers have developed a silver-inked rollerball pen that writes electronic circuits on paper, wood, and other surfaces. The breakthrough leads a new class of flexible, low-cost and disposable electronics, according to the team.

The normal-looking pen's ink is a solution of silver. After writing, the ink dries to leave conducting pathways that maintain their integrity through multiple bends and folds in the paper, enabling devices with flexibility and conformability, according to a news release on the breakthrough.

The effort was led by Jennifer Lewis, a professor of materials science and engineering, and Jennifer Bernhard, a professor of computer and electrical engineering at the University of Illinois. The results were published in the journal Advanced Materials.

In previous work, metallic inks have been used with ink jet printers to fabricate electronic devices. The pen offers the flexibility to apply metallic ink directly on paper without the hassle and expense of buying and programming inkjet printers.

"Pen-based printing allows one to construct electronic devices on-the-fly," Lewis said in the news release.

The team so far has used the pen to put LED lighting on the roof of a house in a sketched copy of a painting by Jung Hee Kim called "Sae-Han-Do." The LED is powered by a five-volt battery connected to the edge of the painting.

The team has also demonstrated a flexible LED display on paper, conductive text, and three-dimensional radio antennas.

More on electronic printing:

• Esquire unveils cover with electronic ink
• Work underway on paper 2.0 – it's electric!
• Inkjet printers may be the future of solar cells
• World's smallest 3-D printer is a factory in the home

John Roach is a contributing writer for msnbc.com. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by hitting the "like" button on the Cosmic Log Facebook page or following msnbc.com's science editor, Alan Boyle, on Twitter (@b0yle).