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Gold turns high-tech tattoos into reality

News Arnulf Hinkel, Financial Journalist – 08.12.2021

© Umicore

For thousands of years, humans have been embellishing their bodies with tattoos, at least this is what a number of approximately 40,000-year-old statues found in South China suggest. They are covered with numerous, tattoo-like ornamental carvings which are interpreted as tattoos. One of the statues is exhibited in the Zheijang Provincial Museum in the Chinese provincial capital Hangzhou. The significance and popularity of tattoos have varied regionally and evolved over the millennia: to mark criminals, as a sign of affiliation with a certain social group or religion, as a distinction or simply as “hand-drawn” ornamental body art.

Medical use of tattoos dates back more than 5000 years

The first verifiably tattooed person lived around 3300 B.C. and became famous far beyond scientific circles as the glacier mummy Ötzi. Researchers at the EURAC Institute for Mummies in Bolzano, South Tyrol, believe it is possible that the 61 tattoos on Ötzi’s body had a medical function: they may have served as an early form of acupuncture to relieve back and joint pain. Today, 5300 years later, scientists are working on high-tech tattoos to analyse and monitor vital functions, e.g. as health markers.

High-tech tattoos can connect people to electronic applications

Smart wearables are becoming increasingly popular. Most of them contain gold due to the excellent electrical conductivity, ductility and durability of the precious metal, which is never subject to corrosion. High-tech tattoos are smart wearables in the strictest sense: they are “installed” directly on the skin, with a wafer-thin layer of gold leaf connecting the person to a micro-controller and a wireless communication unit. In contrast to normal tattoos, these skin applications, also called e-tattoos or smart tattoos, can be removed without leaving residue, as scientists from the MIT Media Lab in Cambridge, USA, assure. In cooperation with Microsoft Research, they are working on smart tattoos which in the future will supposedly allow their wearers to control electronic devices such as computers or smartphones.

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