听Researchers have developed new tattoo inks that change color in response to diverse signals.
听The group鈥檚 prototypes include tattoos that only appear when they鈥檙e exposed to sunlight and that turn on and off at certain temperatures.
听Once they undergo safety testing, such tattoos also could alert people to changes in their blood chemistry or help doctors diagnose illness.
When a pair of tourists hiking the Alps stumbled across the frozen remains of the mummy 脰tzi in 1991 they also, unknowingly, discovered the oldest known examples of tattoos in history. The 5,300-year-old body, more famously known as the Iceman, has 61 tattoos arranged in patterns of straight lines scratched across his skin.
What amazes CU Boulder chemist Carson Bruns about those dyes, however, isn鈥檛 their age. It鈥檚 what they鈥檙e made of.听
鈥淭hey鈥檙e made of the same stuff that our tattoos are made of,鈥� said Bruns, of CU Boulder鈥檚听ATLAS Institute. 鈥淚t blows my mind that we haven鈥檛 updated this technology in so long.鈥�
Bruns wants to change that. He鈥檚 designing a line of 鈥渢ech tattoos鈥� that don鈥檛 just look cool: They might also help to keep you healthy one day鈥攁lerting people when they run a fever or even allowing doctors to diagnose medical conditions without expensive blood tests.
鈥淲hen you think about what a tattoo is, it鈥檚 just a bunch of particles that sit in your skin,鈥� said Bruns, also an assistant professor in the听Department of Mechanical Engineering. 鈥淥ur thought is: What if we use nanotechnology to give these particles some function?鈥�
The pursuit of tattoos that do more merges two of Bruns鈥� passions: nanotechnology and art. During his free time, the scientist paints and has even dabbled in tattooing skin himself.
It blows my mind that we haven鈥檛 updated this technology in so long.鈥� 鈥揅arson Bruns
His first tech tattoo inks include 鈥渟olar freckles,鈥� or tattoos that are only visible when exposed to sunlight. He said that such body art might one day give people a heads up when their sunscreen has worn off. And he has developed an ink that turns on and off at different temperatures鈥攑otentially allowing people to carry around their own, built-in thermometers.
You may not see these designs in your local tattoo parlor for several years鈥攖hey will need to undergo rigorous safety testing first.
But they also represent something new for the age-old craft of body art: tattoos that would make 脰tzi sit up and take notice.
