South Korean researchers develop nanotech tattoos that monitor your health

Researchers in South Korea have reportedly developed an electronic tattoo that can be used to track a patient’s health, including their heart rate and levels of glucose and lactate.

Researchers at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology in Daejeon, South Korea, developed a nanotech tattoo made of liquid metal and carbon nanotubes. The tattoo will function as a health monitoring device that can be hooked up to an electrocardiogram, sending an analysis of patients’ heart rates, glucose and lactate levels and other vital signs.

The tattoo is made of noninvasive particles based on gallium, a soft silver-colored metal often present in semiconductors and thermoments. The durable platinum-plated carbon nanotubes in the tattoo will help conduct electricity.

Steve Park, the project’s leader, hopes that the tattoo will one day be able to connect to a wireless chip that can send signals back and forth between the body and an external device.

“When it is applied to the skin, even with rubbing the tattoo doesn’t come off, which is not possible with just liquid metal,” Park was quoted as saying.

Featured Image via The Sun Health

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