WELCOME to the amazing switched-on jacket which fuses fashion with science fiction-turned-fact.

A revolutionary rubber-like polymer, discovered and adapted by a North Yorkshire firm, means that your jacket will burst into electronic life at the touch of a sleeve or prod of a lapel.

Tap your bodywear and you can pump up the volume of your I-pod as you ski down the slopes; or as an astronaut activate your cooling fan or direct your sample-gathering moon rover by stroking your space glove; or as a firefighter listen for your jacket-bleep, warning if the heat around you becomes menacingly intense.

Peratech, of Roecliffe, near Boroughbridge, which has also created prototypes of sheets which alert hospital nurses to pressure points which could cause bed sores, is now perfecting a prototype jacket which "sniffs" your body odours to assess whether you are in good or ill health.

Now Peratech's collaboration with the University of Leeds-based Digital Print over new uses for its washable, flexible plastics which change from being insulators into metal-like conductors when pressed, stretched or twisted, has earned it a shortlisting in the Yorkshire Forward Centre Of Industrial Collaboration (CIC) awards.

It may not be rocket science, but it was discovered by a rocket scientist. David Lussey, 61, who retired from the RAF in 2000 after years in the security branch working with ground-to-air missiles, said the polymer which could be turned into material was a "chance discovery".

He said: "I then went down the right route and now the ideas are growing. We already have 100 patents."

As the word spreads throughout the world, Peratech expands. It how has 12 people on its UK payroll, with 12 more in Singapore and more to follow at a new base to be set up in the US. Mr Lussey's revolutionary space glove is now on display in the Museum Of Modern Art in New York as "one of the top ten innovations of the decade". "Unfortunately the display does not give us credit for it," said Mr Lussey.

Another North Yorkshire firm shortlisted in the Yorkshire Forward Centre Of Industrial Collaboration (CIC) awards is Firmac, of Scarborough.

Judges are impressed with its work with the engineering design department of Hull University to develop a machine which manufactures low cost, highly-effective air ducts for the air conditioning industry.

The duct-making machine is targeting export markets in Europe, the Middle East and the US.

Simon Morrell, general manager, said: "Before ducting was mostly hand made, but our manufactured ducting has the same robustness with less material made at greater speed."

The invention has means that over the past year four more people have been recruited bringing its numbers to 33.

The CIC awards will be held at the National Media Museum in Bradford on January 29.