Tattoo To Monitor Diabetes

infonography notes that the "BBC is reporting about using tattoos to monitor the state of a diabetics' health. While TV's the Invisible Man series had this, this is actually real. Designed by Gerard Cote, of Texas A&M University they are made of polyethylene glycol beads that are coated with fluorescent molecules. Likely this will start to change the attitudes of parents who have been resisting the urging of their kids to get Tattoos."

Re:Gimme!

[Yorrike]

The case here in New Zealand is you must get a prescription, but after that, the test strips are effectively free. I've been dreaming of a watch that'd constantly tell me my blood sugar since I was a boy.

Don't dispare, there's some interesting treatment in development here in New Zealand that's cured a few Type 1 diabetics (like me), by using pig isolete cells encased in polymer tubes that are implanted in the abdominal area.

Really great stuff, but New Zealand's government is full of crack pots who think that such implants could introduce a retro virus - so the recipiants of the implants have been in Mexico and the Cook Islands so far (they're actually curing people).

Flourescent tattoos

[FCAdcock]

Flourescent tattoos are not safe

As a professional tattoo artist, and a liscensed one to boot, I am regularly asked if I can/will do the new flourescent tattoos, and I always give the exact same answer. "NO!"

In 20 years, I may, but right now, while there have never been any long term tests to see if these tattoos will cause bodily harm, I refuse to put flourescent ink in anyone. There have been no tests to aprove the flourescent inks for permanent cosmetic use, so no one is certain that these inks are safe. Every bottle of ink in my shop comes with about 20 pages of paperwork documenting that the inks have passed years of medical testing, and have been found safe. The flourescent inks do not come with this paperwork, so I refuse stock those inks.

Think about it, things that glow usualy come with warnings saying not to ingest, that means it's not safe. When you put ink in your skin, it does the same thing as if you swallow it.

s/glucose/opiates/

[DrVeg]

This really has great medical potential, but I can imagine similar developments of the future used for other purposes. Being able to monitor bodily chemicals could be extremely valuable, but also subject to unexpected uses.
As condition of your employment, you agree to a permanent tattoo that indicates drug use.
Or,
The court orders you to get a drug-monitoring tattoo and scan it by your home internet-connected device every 6 hours.

Re:Close but no cigar.

[Myco]

The really cool part is if these were cybernetic implants, and you could slap the replacement cartridges into your wrists just like Spidey's webshooters.

Cosmetic applications

[Myco]

Well, first of all I'd really hate to see people just getting a boring old meter on their arm. I mean, it doesn't really matter what shape the thing is in as long as you can read it, right? So get a funky spiral or make it part of a larger design or something.

What would be even cooler would be to start seeing this technology, and "adaptive tattoos" in general made available to the general populace. The ability to have tattoos that change their appearance depending on physiological conditions would open up new worlds of expression. Anyone who's read Nylund's "Signal to Noise" will remember the character Panda's always-changing eyelid tattoos. Very cool.

Re:Cosmetic applications

[BluBrick]

The ability to have tattoos that change their appearance depending on physiological conditions would open up new worlds of expression.

The Japanese had this in their traditional body art for many years until recently. It's a white ink that is almost transparent on pale skin, but becomes quite distinctly visible when the skin is blushed. IIRC, it was traditionally applied to women as an erotic decoration. When the woman was especially aroused, her skin would blush and her tattoo would light up like Las Vegas.

This particular tattoo ink is now extremely unpopular and may even be illegal because of its major downside - it's a lead-based pigment.

Perhaps this guy can shed more light on the topic.

Re:This should really be a great thing

[Oliver Wendell Jones]

I've been hearing about thise glucowatch for the better part of 12 years now. I work in the glucose monitoring industry, and this story has been popular for years. Every recent mention of I have seen shows that the precision is still poor, and you still need to perform daily finger-stick tests to calibrate the watch, so if you're looking to get away from sticking your finger, the glucowatch won't solve your problems.