Programmable pigments: Photochromic nanoparticle inks for rewritable tattoos | Hacker News Reader

Programmable pigments: Photochromic nanoparticle inks for rewritable tattoos

cell.com

88 pointsBluestein65 comments

Years ago I wrote a short sci fi story where a guy invents and open sources a system like crispr (before crispr existed) and takes it to burning man and gives everybody gene therapy to make glowing cephalopod tattoos that can appear/disappear/change color/all the other things that cuttlefish can do.

The technology ends up being repurposed for all sorts of medicines/recreational purposes.

Only after it's released, it turns out it causes some fatal disease a year later, which is only noticed because Burning Man was empty next year.

So just fill your skin with this ink and use a laser to print any pattern.

Looking forward to see human ads

Plenty of monster drink tattoos around

Instead of focusing on tattoos, could we work on this being used for bistable displays, like e-ink but using light pulses to transition each pixel?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMBX6nFg0RE

What would be the use case ?

I’m older, with no tattoos. My oldest son has several.

I’ve noticed with some amusement that several celebrities ( and non-celebrities ) have publicly announced and explained their recent tattoo removals.

It reminds me of Dr. Seuss’s Sneetches.

I think your smugness is unwarranted. Some people get tattoos on a lark, and grow out of their meanings and eventually remove them. Some people think long and hard about their tattoos and they become personally commissioned works of art.

I have two gorgeous sleeves with deep meaning, that I put hours and hours of pain in to. But they are for me. I love the art, I love carrying that art. I don't care about how they scan to others.

It has nothing to do with being cool or fitting in.

They weren't talking about you then

They likened tattoos to sneetches -- people who adorn themselves to fit in. Most tattoo havers are similar to me, and this person seems to be making a broad generalization about most tattoo havers.

A cool concept, but regular daylight making it disappear again sounds pretty annoying.

It would be ideal for apply temporary make-up for a night out, I imagine.

Wonder if it would be possible, someday, to make Cellular Automata out of these? Then could have skin level dynamic images.

That is so cool. I wonder if this allows for printing images with some kind of 3d printer like thing with a weak uv laser

Got me in mind of the people nowadays "renting space" across their body - this would be an ultimate form ...

Cephalopod camouflage in 3, 2, 1..

Naked though

This is awesome and I hope it catches on, but the idea of "may be useful to people who want to conceal tattoos in some situations" seems far fetched, some make-up layer would probably be a simpler solution, wouldn't it?

Hot springs and baths in parts of Japan deny entry to anyone with tattoos

Yeah, I guess now’s time to do the groundwork for building a tattoo empire in Japan.

Usually a bandage will suffice to cover it. Even for very tattooed people, can be quite liberal with it.

> Even for very tattooed people, can be quite liberal with it.

Is this true for all heavily tattooed people, or are they more understanding if you're not Japanese?

In my anecdote, the tattooed person was Asian but non-Japanese. We did this several times, but of course it's still a small sample size, so take this with a pinch of salt.

No. I'm black, tatooed and found an onsen in Tokyo that accepted me without any issues whatsoever.

I find that in the big cities (Tokyo, Osaka, etc) this isn't an issue anymore but it still is an issue in more rural parts of Japan. We were visiting friends in Akita prefecture recently and found fairly nice baths that did not accept tattooed folks.

Like literally any tattoo? or do you have to be fully blasted to get banned?

depends on the bath, but they're generally understanding of foreigners with tattoos.

> These dyes are encapsulated in nanoparticles of polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) — a medical-grade, glass-like plastic that is already used in medical implants and dermal fillers

Nano plastics? :p

Still pretty neat. I like the example picture in the article too

Despite the limitations, that is dope as heck.

I'll have to read up on this. I wonder about it as a kind of e-ink?

I'm sure there are a bunch of differences, but fun to think about perhaps.

Regardless of the actual tech here, "he turned his tattoos off" has "the door dilated" vibes. Very cool.

This probably has some cool applications for magicians to do unique tricks where certain things appear on their skin.

Does it turn the lymphedema off too?

Reminds me of that Ray Bradbury short story, "The Illustrated Man."

is someone bored and going around hn front page editing all the titles. This is the second post i see in the last hour or so that was changed to a worse title.

Why not have e-ink in your skin..

Because skin is not just loosely hanging on but is attached to the tissue below.

An alternative to "customizable/dynamic fashion" like this would be tags/markers on people's clothes that are invisible to the naked eye but can be detected by AR glasses, making you appear to have different clothing, accessories, tattoos etc to people wearing those glasses.

But man none of the major company execs have a hint about any of the cool applications of AR sigh

AR glasses are a scourge

Because their implementation has been led by braindead suits.

Watch the anime Dennou Coil and see what they could be :)

They will always be pervert glasses. They might also be cool non pervert glasses, but you cannot make them safe in a way that prevents them from being pervert glasses.

No shit. Do you think computers and phone are never used for pervy shit?

pff boy

There's a big difference between hidden spy cameras and trying to hide recording with a giant rectangle of a phone.

Did you just spawn yesterday or somehow miss all the "sneak porn" that's been made with phone cameras EVEN BEFORE SMARTPHONES so much that places like Japan mandated a shutter sound effect?

AR glasses are hidden? And they have a recording indicator. What the hell are you on for real

Take a moment and try to understand before you construct such obviously loony statements.

I wonder what makes you so angry and tilted?

Do you have these glasses and it makes you upset that you are perceived as a perv? Do you work on perv glasses? It's very surprising to respond so strongly to white knight for an obviously creepy escalation of surveillance and recording technology.

I wonder what makes you so paranoid and loony?

that you can't even notice your own dumb comments echoed back at you: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50044856

I've made you mad, sorry that calling them pervert glasses hurt your feelings.

There you go imaging things again.

That padded cell you're in keeps you from hurting anyone else as much as it keeps you from hurting yourself.

Here's a possible solution for your loony paranoia: https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=burqa

You're a gem, lol.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Ok1LS5QksJc

Powerful.

Lol. Allow to violently perforate your skin with a set of sharp needles to permanently inject a pigment that can be hidden.

Just wear a baby skin sticker!

Most piercings fit your description.

Piercing is one big perforation.

Tatoo is a process of continuous small perforations sometimes for many hours.

Johnny Mnemonic meets Blade Runner vibe: A duo is assigned to hunt a network of data smugglers who use "toggle tattoos" to transport encrypted secrets with zero knowledge. Starring Jason Statham and Liam Neeson. Brought to you by Carl's Jr.

Hear me out, implanted lie detectors with displays tattooed into the foreheads of politicians.

Simpler to just use a normal tattoo that says "LIE".

Insert *obligatory* "mouth is moving..." joke :)

You guys are so funny :)

Your auto-immune system does not like ink.

You don't have an "auto-immune system". Auto-immune means your immune system is attacking your own healthy cells.

Tattoos are fine. There's some evidence that maybe, maybe, immune system responses can be impacted by tattoos. But changes in immune system response does not necessarily mean impaired or negative.

kinda, but the system is not perfect.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoimmune_regulator

oversimplifying but in every person there are tradeoffs about attacking things inside yourself (viruses, cancer, etc) and outside things (parasites, bacteria, etc) and your genetics influences this. See the old Th1/Th2 balance

anyway it was probably a typo on his part, he's such a sleepy guy..

Thank you doctor Gray.

how about allergies?...ive seen recent tatooees and that shit aint good man

Some people have allergies to some inks. You definitely want to check with your artist and check what inks they use before getting a piece. There's still an outside shot that you'll end up with an allergy, which can be made worse with sun exposure.

It's a risk. A very small one. You gotta figure out your tolerance for risk.

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