Alerts acquired from water transfer OLED tattoo

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Scientists have created a temporary tattoo with organic light-emitting diodes that could monitor hydration in athletes or alert consumers to food spoiling. 

Developed at UCL and the IIT (Italian Institute of Technology), the OLED tattoo technology is applied in the same way as water transfer tattoos. The advance is described in Advanced Electronic Materials.

Stretchy e-tattoo measures ECG and SCG heart activity

In a statement, Professor Franco Cacialli (UCL Physics & Astronomy), senior author of the paper, said: "The tattooable OLEDs that we have demonstrated for the first time can be made at scale and very cheaply. They can be combined with other forms of tattoo electronics for a very wide range of possible uses. These could be for fashion - for instance, providing glowing tattoos and light-emitting fingernails. In sports, they could be combined with a sweat sensor to signal dehydration.

"In healthcare, they could emit light when there is a change in a patient's condition - or, if the tattoo was turned the other way into the skin, they could potentially be combined with light-sensitive therapies to target cancer cells, for instance.

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