Sick tattoos

by Peter W McOwan, Queen Mary University of London

Researchers at MIT and Harvard have new skin in the game when it comes to monitoring people's bodily health. They have developed a new wearable technology in the form of colour- and shape-changing tattoos. These tattoos work by using bio-sensitive inks, changing colour, fading away or appearing under different coloured illumination, depending on your body chemistry. They could, for example, change their colour, or shape as their parts fade away, depending on your blood glucose levels.

This kind of constantly on, constantly working body monitoring ensures that there is nothing to fall off, get broken or run out of power. That's important in chronic conditions like diabetes where monitoring and controlling blood glucose levels is crucial to the person's health. The project, called Dermal Abyss, brings together scientists and artists in a new way to create a data interface on your skin.

There are still lots of questions to answer, like how long will the tattoos last and would people be happy displaying their health status to anyone who catches a glimpse of their body art? How would you feel having your body stats displayed on your tats? It's a future question for researchers to draw out the answer to.