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Researcher Developing Tattoo Removal Cream
BarbaraHudson writes During tattooing, ink is injected into the skin, initiating an immune response, and cells called "macrophages" move into the area and "eat up" the ink. The macrophages carry some of the ink to the body's lymph nodes, but some that are filled with ink stay put, embedded in the skin. That's what makes the tattoo visible under the skin. Dalhousie Uiversity's Alec Falkenham is developing a topical cream that works by targeting the macrophages that have remained at the site of the tattoo. New macrophages move in to consume the previously pigment-filled macrophages and then migrate to the lymph nodes, eventually taking all the dye with them. "When comparing it to laser-based tattoo removal, in which you see the burns, the scarring, the blisters, in this case, we've designed a drug that doesn't really have much off-target effect," he said. "We're not targeting any of the normal skin cells, so you won't see a lot of inflammation. In fact, based on the process that we're actually using, we don't think there will be any inflammation at all and it would actually be anti-inflammatory."
No tattoo at all in the first place.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
Trees pump out all sorts of carcinogenic crap. The Great Smokey Mountains aren't smokey from man-made pollution or fire, after all. If the canopy isn't too heavy, living outdoors means susceptibility to skin cancer. Natural food, especially plants also contains all sorts of toxins. And water in nature can contain lead and arsenic and kill you too. But if you live like that, your chance of cancer might be cut down by getting bitten by a snake or attacked by a wolf or a bear or something, or just hypothermia.
I keep wondering what will happen when the fashion for tattoos fades away but the tattoos themselves don't. The (mainstream) people who get tattoos don't seem to realize that today's fashion generally looks stupid after a decade or so. But unlike other fashions, tattoos are intended to be permanent. In fact, that's the primary selling point. Fortunately, if necessity is the mother invention, maybe technology like that described in TFA will provide answers.
Another thing in this category is gauges. Even if one assumes that people with gauges look cool now, they're unlikely to look cool in a decade. (Witness bell bottom pants from the 1970s as seen from the 1980s or later.) Won't they look stupid in the future with either a gauge or a giant hole in their dangling earlobes?
As an old timer, the whole idea of body graffiti seems a bit strange to me. Usually, graffiti is applied to someone elses' property, not your own. At best, graffiti is art, but at worst, it is just vandalism. So why would you vandalize the single-most valuable piece of property you own - your body?
I'm a math/science guy, and I have math symbols on my arms. If I ever regret my affection towards math and science, I might as well have some skin torn off.
Besides, the capital Sigma works great whenever somebody asks me "Are you series?".
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
It's not just a corporate attitude. It turns off a lot of people. Which is ok for young people who don't give a damn what anyone but their current love interest thinks. But when real life starts to intervene as one gets older, there are a lot of people who regret the ink.