The Science of Tattoos

and I like them. I parturefually, like chef tattoos that exalt like their favorite kind of food or their favorite night. Oh yeah, I like that. There's the guy on Mind of a Chef the second season who has the one arm is sleeved and different vegetables and ingredients. My apologies for not remembering his name, but check out the second season of Mind of a Chef too, good stuff. Yeah, but that's can be really kind of fascinating. What about you, Well,

I do have one tattoo. And to your noncommittal thing that you brought up, indeed with me. It was like a long sort of deciding process because I always kind of wanted one, but I wasn't impulsome enough to just go out and get like some stupid tattoo in junior higher high school. So I I spent a lot of time thinking, all right, if I get the one tattoo, get one one mark of my body that's gonna be permanent. You know, what is it gonna be? Where am I

gonna put it? It It has to have some sort of um you know, it needs to be a potent enough symbol. It needs to uh to to to mean something to me. Because if you get a whole bunch of them, if you just get sleeves, and you can afford to have some duds in the mix, right, and you can cover them up later on. But if you're just gonna get the one, you gotta really hit it out of the park so that it's you know, you can argue that maybe I didn't hit it out of the park with this,

so it's um. I had the design done by an artist by the name of Michael Manning, and it's it's on my my ribs and it's the Yeah, it was. It was probably not a great place pain wise for a first tattoo, but it's essentially the spear wound of Christ. But it's also kind of like um a volva and

also kind of like an eye. So like, I had those three requests because I'm always I've always been fascinated with with some of the Stranger Christ imagery, particularly images such as the you know, the with the finger is going into the whole and the resurrected Christ's body, and the idea that that the spear of wound and the resurrected Christ is not only like yonic symbolism but is all but it is ultimately about combining masculine and feminine aspects of God into one body. So I was always

interested in all that stuff. So I thought, well, hell I would just get a tattoo that kind of encompasses some of those ideas. And uh is kind of a you know, a shifting, amorphous symbol of something. Well, I was just about to say, you really nailed it, but that's not a choice of words. But really, seriously, I mean that is a thoughtful tattoo. Well, thank you. Yeah, And plus it's out of the way, so nobody sees it unless I'm you know, swimming or something so works

on all accounts. Now, a two thousand and twelve Harris poll found that twenty one percent of American adults have a tattoo. That's one in five, which is a lot higher than I thought it would be. Yeah, yeah, I mean, I guess you know. Part of it is that you don't necessarily have to see tattoos. I've I've I've seen it. When I was researching this, I kept coming across I don't know something in the keywords I was throwing in. I kept finding an article about Dolly Parton being secretly

covered with tattoos. I think she's a butterfly or something emerging from her boosom. But I mean, I've never seen it. So so so everybody could essentially have butterfly tattoos on their stern ums, have been Lessia at the beach with them. You're just not gonna know. Oh you're gonna call it

this sternum the sternum. Yeah, I alright. Um. You probably are familiar with all sorts of sites that celebrate the good, the bad, the terrible of tattoos, because one of the intriguing things about tattoos is that they can be permanent. Although we have technology now to get rid of them. But essentially what you're doing is you're trying to immortalize some sort of idea. So when you see some bad grammar in a tattoo, then it's especially mortifying, right, Yeah,

bad grammar, just weird, perplexing imagery. Particularly one that I was come back to was the one of the dolphin setting on like a lazy boy recliner smoking a ball. That's one of my favorites. Um, and really that's that's That's not even like one of the worst tattoos. It's not like it's not really offensive to anybody. Uh, it's just strange that someone was like that, that's going on me and I'm going to take it with me to

the grave. It's gonna last longer than my life. That tattoo. Now, there's one I saw that was super earnest and kind of sad only because of the way it turned out. But um, it was a bat tattoo that said only God can judge me. The problem with it is that it had super fancy scroll so that j look like an f and so it turned out essentially looking like only God can fudge me, fudge me. Okay, all right, Uh,

it's yeah. I mean that's the power of tattoos though, is that it's it's the the the permanence or the the ideal permanence of the thing. It's what may can make a tattoo uh inspiring and empowering. It's what it can make a tattoo uh dehumanizing and uh. And we've seen examples of both ends of the spectrum throughout human history. I mean, you go back in time, you look at some of our earliest examples. We found, Um, we found them etched in the flesh of the five thousand, two

hundred year old Ootsi the Iceman. This was the Iceman that we found on the Italian Austrian border back in nine And we also find very early examples of tattoos among the Egyptians, the only the females. This is a really interesting They this to date them back to around two thousand year two. This would date them back to around two thousand b c. E UM. And these were these women were probably they think royal Cortisan's dancers, ETCETERA.

Archaeologist Johan Fletcher theorizes that these tattoos had a therapeutic role and functioned as a permanent form of amulet during the very different difficult time of pregnancy and birth, and these would have been placed on the abdomen um around the breasts and uh. And so in this we see the idea of the the tattoo is is is a is almost a magical spell as a protective uh feature.

And and really you see that again through throughout human history even today, A lot of times we get those those tattoos on us um to immortalize some some spirit that we aspire to, or some person that means a lot to us, some deity, some supernatural force, whatever, some sort of symbolics, some symbolism that we wish to take into our flesh. One of the more interesting ones to

me that I ran across was from a archaeological dig. Uh. These archaeologists were working in an icy plateau in eastern Russia, and they stumbled upon a burial chamber of a mummy who became known as the Siberian Ice Princess, and her year old body was incredibly well preserved in the permit frost,

and it had elaborate tattoos on both of her arms. Now, her head was shaved, and she wore a wig and a tall wooden head dress decorated with cats and swans, and they think she goes a princess or someone who of elevated status, because not only that she was surrounded by six horses that were saddled and bridled they were supposed to be They think her spiritual escorts into the

other world. And she also had a little um container of cannabis, which they then found out maybe had something to do with alleviating her pain, because she did have some cancer growth in her body and she had some

form of osteoporosis too. So, um, what I thought it was interesting in terms of the tattoos is that the person who lead this Natalia, Paulice Max, says that compared to all tattoos found by archaeologists around the world, those on the mummies of the Pazarik people whom she was a part of, are the most complicated and the most beautiful. And so what's interesting about this tattoo is that they're they're the sort of language that they deal in is of animal imagery, and so they had a kind of

animal based language, which is really cool. And Paul's Max says that these tattoos were used as a means of personal identification, So think of your own passport. This idea is that this would tell the story of who you were, so that in the afterlife you could meet up with others. Interesting, there's a reminds me of an old Eastern saying that I ran across that said that if if you do not have a tattoo, did it's almost like you don't exist,

Like you're you're basically invisible of the tat. By tattooing something into your body, um, like you're making yourself more real.

I'm thinking about that all right. Now. You mentioned that the sort of medicinal aspects of that tattoo, I should go back and mentioned that on our our friend Ootsi the iceman uh Ootsies tattoos consisted of dots and small crosses on his lower spine and right knee and ankle joints, and those correspond to areas of scrain induced degeneration uh with the suggestion here being that they may have been applied to alleviate joint pain, and therefore we're essentially therapeutic essentially,

and again you're getting also probably into a certain amount of magical thinking as well and ritual but but ultimately an early form of of a medicinal tattoo. Now you had mentioned Egyptian women and um tattoos that would help as sort of talisman's And there's one example that the British Museum looked at. They had scan and ripped the mummy of an Egyptian woman dating back to seven hundred CE.

They found a tattoo on her thigh and as just deciphered by the curators, the tattoo, written in Ancient Greek, is transliterated as m I x A h A or Michael. So the idea here's that its thought that the the name was referring to the archangel Michael, and because it was placed on our inner thigh, that it might have been a protection not just for the birth of a child, but maybe even against a sexual violent act. Interesting. Here's

another interesting religious tattoo. And I do want to point out that we're not going to attempt to chronicle every fascinating tattoo tradition that's been passed down through human history, because there are many whole books have been written about this. But we're just hitting some high points here. For us Um during the Crusades in the eleven and twelfth century, Um Christian warriors identified themselves with the mark of the Jerusalem Cross, so they could be given a proper Christian

burial of died in battle. And that that one is kind of interesting because on one hand it's a religious tattoo, but it's also it also is sort of like some of the modern models of medical tattoos that will touch on. Basically, it's saying who and what you were for anyone that would come across your body. All right, we're gonna take a quick break and we get back. We're gonna talk prison tats. All right, we're back now. Earlier and we

mentioned the the power of tattoos. The permanence of tattoos has, of course the positive and empowering side, but also a negative into humanizing side. You do see a long tradition of penal tattoos uh throughout human history, particularly uh. You see it in Chinese, see it in Japan, you see it in the Hellenistic period. And this is the idea that you have, You have your your criminals, and you want to mark your criminals. So what do you do. You tattoo them and you let everyone know then from

you know, ideally for the rest of their lives. We're dealing with someone who committed this act. So that's taking the permanence of that tattoo and using it in a very very negative manner. Yeah, but now you know, fast forward to today and you see prison tattoos more of aspect of prison culture. And to be clear, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, having a tattoo kit is considered contraband for a number of reasons the US as

a weapon, it could spread infectious disease. And yet, as we know, contraband gets through the gates, and in fact, there's an entire prison economy based on contraband. Yeah, I think we went into some of this in our did we go into this in our our our episodes about digestion? Because I know Mary Roach went into the prison wallet a lot in her book Prison Wallet. That's right. I cannot imagine smuggling a tattoo machine into my prison wallet based on some of the other things that get smuggled in.

The tattoo gun is probably not the worst. But but indeed, I mean, you could you look at a prison environment and you have so many there's it's it's almost a perfect model for why a lot of people get tattoos. Because you're cut off from people you love, so you might get a tattoo uh of some reminds you of

somebody outside. You also have to in many cases bond with a different cultural group you're you know, you have prison gangs, for lack of another word, prison cultures, and that you want to show that you are a part of that culture. You make that that culture a part of your flesh. Also, it's a it's a place where some inmates find religion, and you want to show that that this deity or this uh, this model of faith means a lot to you, so you put it into

your skin. Retired law enforcement official in prison culture expert Richard Lichton says, quote, I've talked to many inmates, and tattoos are always about what's important to them. It can be something personal likes about this name or a Bible quote, or to belong to a group, to intimidate others, or to tell a story. So I think that's really important to uh. And we'll talk a little bit more about this.

But you know, if you're in prison and you, as you say, you want to bond with a certain group or identify with the group, the easiest way to do that is to have a permanent tattoo inked on you. Yeah. I mean it kind of comes back to the basic idea that as humans, we we all look kind of the same on the outside. You know, there's not there's nothing on the outside that necessarily gives a lot of depth about character. And the tattoo is an ability to take our inner world and make it a part of

our outer world. Well. And in terms of prison culture too, it's a bit of survival, right, especially if you're trying to join a group or you know, get protection from that group. So, um, let's get to the tear drop tattoo. Shall we kind of get that out of the way, because there's always that always comes up, and I feel like there's no definitive answer for this. This is the idea that you have a tear drop tattoo you've killed

somebody in prison. Yes, okay, that's usually there. I should say that most people associate it with, you know, the fact that the wearer has killed someone, but it can also mean that the wearer has served a long prison sentence or is mourning the loss of a family member, And a clear tear drop can mean that the wearer has committed an attempted murder or alternatively that a close

friend was killed and the wearer is seeking revenge. You know, we haven't even touched on this, but just as a call back to our episode The Zen of Pain and to a listener mail that we received and I believe red in our recent episode, getting a tattoo stings a bit. And Uh, it's depending on on your means of of

of actually uh, putting the tattoo in your flesh. Um it it becomes a ritual, it becomes an experience of pain, a rich wolf pain, and so you have that whole dynamic going on as well as you say, get in the name of a departed loved one put into your flesh. Yeah. And I think that the reason why that tear drop one is appoignant or so trouble link to so many people because it's such a mark on that person and in such an outward expression of the angst or sadness

that that consumes them. Presumably. Yeah, because when you get a facial tattoo, you're changing the way that you communicate with the world. Um. I think we've discussed before on here that, uh, when a when a hominid species such as humans have faces that kind of all look alike. It's because the more the more like we are, the more nuance comes out in our expressions, the more that we're better able to communicate with one another because we

have kind of a similar facial recognition cognition system in place. Yeah, so so, yeah, the idea of facial tattoo is often kind of kind of frightening, kind of intimidating. Um. And of course you see a great tradition of a facial tattooing with the Maori people, really beautiful facial tattoos, but in particularly with the men, it's it's often you know, it's about uh, putting on this this impressive usual display,

this aggressive display intimidation. Right, So it's sort of a kind of embodied cognition, which we've talked about before with the old lab coats, that people dawn sometimes and they feel more important or more proficient. In the same way, if you're altering your face to look more intimidating or to express express your grief, then you are embodying that that is changing the person that you are expressing to

the world. Now, speaking of gangs and cultural tattoos and and about the hour display, sometimes it's about the hidden display as well, because I think one of the most remarkable examples of like a gang cultural tattoo is of course, the the the body tattoos of the yakuza, the Japanese gangster class. We have these elaborate designs that they generally have themes of of unresolved conflict and also symbols of of character traits that the the wear wants to aspire to.

For instance, the carp often shows up as a representation and of strength and perseverance. Yeah, and then there's also you know, sort of the the language behind them, So it's not just the bonding, but it's also sort of again embodied cognition in a way of saying, this is

the life that I have chosen for myself. When it comes to gang tattooing, the Canada Border Services Agency document Tattoos and their Meetings says that the three dot tattoo, usually in a triangle configuration, it signifies prison, hospital, cemetery, and that represents the path and the ultimate end of

a gang lifestyle. So it's the kind of commitment to that lifestyle to to have that tattoo and say that I accept of these maybe the terms of of uh, my employment or the culture that I'm entering into now. We mentioned medical tattoos a little bit earlier, and of course we we still see the use of tattoos in medicine, though not as a mystical curative factor, but you do see them. For instance, is to indicate a medically relevant condition on a body of your location, kind of like

those Crusader tattoos we mentioned earlier. Essentially would would let someone know this person has this condition, please treat them accordingly. You have in some cases, US soldiers have a tattoo version of their dog tags that are sometimes called meat tags, and this is essentially the same thing as the crusader tattoo that says this dead body was so and so and this is where they were formed, that is their unit, etcetera. But then you also see um medical tattoos uh used

in radiotherapy. You're using a radiation to to treat a very particular part of the body. You want to hit the same part, the same area each and every time. You need a permanent marker of where to to apply that radiation. Yeah, and usually it's just for like freckle sized dots, and you know, in sort of a square configuration that's mapping out that patch of tissue that needs

to get hit over and over and over again. And the more accurate you can make that and the faster the process, especially for people who are going through say six weeks or more radiation treatments, this can be really really helpful. Indeed, also you'll see medical tattoos sometimes used for aerola replacement or parvy a replacement at following them assectomy. So again this dude, those are just some some quick points on the long, rich timeline of human tattooing. All Right,

we're gonna take a quick break. When we get back, we're going to talk about the actual mechanics of tattooing. Hey, we're back. So we've talked about the history of tattooing, culture of tattooing, and it brings us up to the

modern day. Yeah, and before we really talk about the more of the modern aspects of tattooing, including the invention of the tattoo machine, we should say that, um, the reason why tattooing became so popular, or one of the reasons is people like Joseph Banks, who was naturalist aboard the British ship Endeavor and According to a Smithsonian article by Abigail West, he was one of the first to record encounters with the Polynesian practice of tattooings or tattoo um.

And again we're talking about seventeen sixty nine when Banks was watching a twelve year old girl being extensively adorned, and then he wrote about it, and it really captured the imaginations of a lot of people, and they then wanted to also participate with tattoos, and indeed we have

a rich tradition of sailor tattoos um. I think probably some of my first encounters with tattoos were individuals saying a church environment who were veterans and had been sailors or otherwise engaged in the Second World War, and they would have these sort of faded miss shape and tattoos that may have once been mermaids or or or just naked ladies or whatever, but had slowly turned into more

sort of green blurs on their arms. And you can see the appeal because you know, here you have back in the day someone looking at these tribes, and you can see how sailors who consider themselves a community and to themselves like a tribe might want to use as bonding as well, or to tell stories about their travels. Yeah, and and they're of course engaging and often risky employment

out there on the on the high seat. So you have every reason to want to make something a little permanent in your flesh when you're dealing with all of this uncertainty. So you won't be surprised to know that it became so popular that in December eighth eight someone by the name of Samuel F. O'Reilly received a patent for the first tattoo machine, a two coil electromagnetic tattoo needle.

His invention was actually a modification of Thomas Edison's eighteen seventy six electric pen patent, and O'Reilly saw how Edison's methods of ink transfer using a stencil and ink pen could be adapted for use in tattooing. And so what you have is this machine that just gets improved over and over again to the point where they get lighter, easier to handle, safer, and less painful, and you get

better inks. Yeah. I'm glad you mentioned the ink, because because the ink has has has varied a lot, it's pretty uh, it's pretty stable. These days, it tends to be more of like a vegetable based pigment. But in the past you've seen him seen it made from anything

from from soot to metal salts um. But again, nowadays, you go into a tattoo parlor, if you're getting a you know, an on the level tattoo, it's probably gonna be something more vegetable based, unless it's something super cutting edge, which we'll talk about in the next episode where we're talking about the future of tattoos. Don't want to give that away, but the tattoo gun, Yeah that the technology

basically hasn't changed all that much. It's it's got there's been a refining process over the years where it gets gets better and better because you can still build a very crude tattoo gun and uh and do the work yourself or have your cellmate do it, which we don't recommend, do not recommend even getting into a situation where you have a cellmate in the first place. Yeah, it's worth

pointing out. I believe the FDA does not technically approve of tattooing or even Hannah tattoos by the way, they say, hinna really, because I was I was looking at one of the um the more cutting edge techniques it will discuss later. I saw a note that it was not approved by the FDA, so I kind of looked into a little bit as well, what does the FDA approve of? And uh uh, it seemed to indicate that the FDA is really does not approve any of the tattooing. So

there you go. Huh, they're kind of old school like that. Yeah, I mean, you are talking about putting ink into your skin, so you can't really expect the FDA to be two behind that. Yeah, let's talk about that. This machine is moving a solid needle up and down to puncture the skin between fifty and three thousand times per minute. The needle penetrates the skin by about a millimeter in deposits a drop of insoluble ink into the skin with each puncture.

And now, when those tattoo needles are punching the skin, they're going through the epidermis, the outer layer of the skin, and then they drive into the dermis, which is the second layer of the skin. And that layer is modeled with nerves and blood vessels. And if the tattoo artist is shading the design, then they're using this um shader needle, which is comprised of several needles in a single bar. Otherwise they're just using one single line needle. So again,

epidermis is the outer layer. Dermos is the second layer. So when you're looking at a tattoo, you're looking through the epidermis into the dermis. That's where the actual ink is contained. And that's really important because that has a lot to do with why they don't fade in the first place. Yeah, because you know, obviously there can be It depends on where you get the tattoo, depends on the wear and tear, depends on a number of factors.

Tattoos do fade over time. If you were some sort of you know, I would love to see this attack in some sort of fiction where there's an immortal character, be it you know, kind of like a highlander or a vampire situation. What happens when they get that tattoo and they actually live five hundred, six hundred years. How awful would that tattoo look over the course of centuries? Yeah, sort of, I love mom. It would just be like

our mom um. Yeah, because if it were just up to the epidermis, that first layer, they would slaw off. Now consider that we shed fortyo skin cells an hour. That's about a million a day. Yeah. In fact, that the body replaces itself with a largely new set of cells every seven years to ten years. Uh, and some of our most important parts are revamped even more rapidly. So we have red blood cells live for about four months. Uh. Those poor cells that line your your acid filled stomach,

they're lucky the last like five days. Meanwhile, cells in the sculptal system are consistently regenerating, but a full turnover takes a full decade. So you know, we're constantly rebuilding our bodies as we as we go through live we're consuming food and we're consuming nutrients, and we're building everything back up again. And yet the tattoo remains mostly stationary, right because it's part and personally because it's sort of trapped in the dermist, that second layer, but also because

of your immune system. And what I mean by that is that every puncture signals to the body to begin the inflammatory process. So you have immune cells racing to those puncture sites, and then you have special cells called macrophages, and they begin kind of while saying quotes, eating the dye in an attempt to clean up the inflammation that's causing and then the rest of the dye gets soaked up by skin cells called fibroblasts. In the fiber blasts along with a lot of those macrophages, they kind of

they suspended in the dermists in perpetuity. And so that's what you have showing through the skin. And of course the dermist is is more stationary than the epidermis. The epidermis is constantly slapping off, but but the dermist is uh is a little more set in stone, if you will. And I really think what's interesting about this is it's a story about the immune system helping this process to

keep the ink in place in your body. Yeah, and then ultimately you have that you have inc that's just not it's not small enough to be a factor for say, white blood cell. So you know, their University of Pittsburgh Medical Center dermatologist James B. Bridenstein pointed out in Scientific American article the tattoos remain in the skin because the ink particles are too large to be ingested by the white blood cells that patrol the body in caraway foreign bodies.

So you know, it's it's kind of like you know, police officers walking in front of some graffiti art on a wall. It's not their jurisdiction to to deal with it's removal. They're not going to remove, and the white blood cells are saying, hey, it's not my problem. This thing is too big to be an issue to me anyway, right, And that's why I think it's interested with macrofacies are trying, and some of them are successful in carrying away the

die particles. Well, others they just kind of sit there with it and their their bellies really, yeah, suspended forever in the dermis. Alright, So this of course brings up the question, how do we remove tattoos? How do you get rid of this this this awful tattoo that you say got on spring break back in n Or or a lover's name that no longer seems uh, seems appliable, like one that comes to my mind as a as

a wrestling fan. There's of course the wrestler uh that goes by the name the Undertaker, And for a while he had like one of his past wives, her name was Sarah, and he got her name tattooed on his throat, so it was very, very prominent when you would see him perform that that Sarah meant a lot to him because her name was on his throat, and then eventually the name was gone and uh, and he was no longer married to her. So you you might wonder, how do you get rid of Sarah? How do you rid

her name from your throat flesh? I wanted to mention that tattoo regret is actually fairly common. According to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, the number of people undergoing laser tattoo removal increased or be three percent from two thousand and eleven to two thousand and twelve. I don't know, just like a bad year for for tattooing. And there's a two thousand and twelve British Association of Dermatologist survey that found that nearly one third of people

suffer they say suffer from tattoo regret. To be fair, this survey was really small, like respondents men, women, and the most tattoos were done by a professional, but half of the patients were over forty, which tells the story that a lot of these tattoos were done in the younger years, between eighteen and twenty five years old. See, it was a youthful indiscretion that they want to to actually erase from their flesh when they're an adult. Yeah,

and then occasionally to you'll have medical complications. Um. The New England Journal of Medicine described contaminated inc causing infections of non tuberculosis myso bacteria. It's really difficult to treat and really the only option is removing that tattoo. I've also heard that sometimes tattoo removal is useful for people who are who are very much still into their tattoos,

but essentially becomes a tool of retouching past tattoos. So you you have some sort of you know, star or name or an emblem, and it's maybe it's faded a little bit or just not maybe it wasn't of the same quality as you. You want your other tattoos and you you don't want to raise it completely, but you want to touch it up, and tattoo removal techniques can

be used to essentially make it look better. Indeed. Um, now, when we get to the actual mechanics of tattoo removal, just remember about the macrofishes and this, you know, the dyes being too large right to break down in the dermis and recall the information because when you are trying to remove a tattoo, what you're basically doing is aiming a laser at it and breaking it down into tinier and tinier particles so that those macrofiges can consume it

and take it away into the bloodstream to be flushed out of your body, break it down to a level that they can handle it, and to a level to where it their business to handle it. And most tattoos require at least three to four treatments. They're spaced about eight weeks apart to remove. The cost can range from several hundred to several thousand dollars, depending on the size

and the location of the tattoo. And it turns out that, um, just black and white tattoos are the easiest to remove because those that black dye is easier to break down with a laser. It's interesting. I would have thought that maybe some of the other colors would be easier to break down, but I guess the black is really stark,

and yeah, it's just it responds better to the laser. Now, um, the removal is described as someone snapping a rubber band at your skin over and over again, so it's it's another sort of painful ritual that you go through um to to to exercise some force, some symbol or some some presents from your life. Of purging. Yeah right, it's almost like self flagilation. Yeah, I mean, and a great way to I guess, end to break up or a

marriage or something. You just actually just pay someone to use a laser beam to just blast their name out of your skin and let your your body's immune system consume it. You can say that too. You can be like, right now, you, I'm purging you from my blood. Yeah,

my immune system is is eating the last of you now, Sarah. Now, given the number of individuals who end up needing to have a tattoo removed, it's it stands to reason that we would want to develop inc that is more easily removed to make tattoos in a sense a little less permanent, knowing that we're going to get tattoos so we don't want to keep forever. I was thinking about that. I was like, this is good for the noncommittal set like myself.

He was like, Okay, maybe I'll get one if I know that it's going to break down much easier with a laser. And that brings us to UH to the special Infinity Inc. Manufactured by what's the name of the company, Freedom to Ink, freedom to eat, because yeah, freedom to be me, you and me. But with the caveat that we can we can erase things that we put into

our flesh. And the idea here is that you just have a a die that is easier to remove because the diet is stored in microscopic capsules uh that will stay in the skin for good, but are more easily broken down by the laser. So it's basically, let's make an ink that is easier to remove with the accepted technique. There's nothing magic about. You can't just rub them the magnet on it and make it go away, but it makes it easier to get rid off with the traditional

means of tattoo removal. Again about the macro fuses and the size, right, So if you can get that die particle as tiny as you can and just suspend it in a polymer bead, then when you aim that laser at it and it combust that polymer bead, than it's so much easier to deal with by the body. And it seems like this uh, the sink is becoming more and more accessible and more and more tattoo parlors around the world. But it does still kind of seem like an easy way out, like like why why do you

want to have that? Is having that escape route in place seems a little against the idea of of the permanency of the whole point anyway, Yeah, but I don't know, I guess it would be it would be definitely beneficial I could see for for those medical tattoos we were talking about, particularly ones used in radiation treatments, because in many cases hum individuals who undergo that kind of treatment afterwards, even though we're talking about very small dots, they might

want to get rid of them because it's it's it's a permanent sign of this, uh, this this ordeal they had to go through. So or maybe it's just something that they should always offer when someone is getting a you know, a girlfriend or boyfriend's named tattooed, like how do you want to upgrade a bit and go to this so other ink, you know, the sort of offered as a as a you know, behind the counter kind

of sale. It's like, hey, I know she means a lot to you, but trust me, five years show now, who knows I don't know why the tattoo artists is talking like that. Yeah, well, you generally want all your relationship advice from a tattoo artist generally speaks Oh, I think a tattoo artist could provide great relationship with us. Are you kidding? They probably have seen everything and probably know more about the human experience than most of us.

I've heard a friend of a friend used to work at a tattoo parlor in Athens, Georgia, and supposedly the parlor had a at a wall of shame in the back where they would put the particularly bad tattoos that individuals had had paid for like their own workmanship, or just like more of like the like hey I want this dolphins sitting on a lazy boy. I think that kind of thing, you know, or particularly like racist tattoos, just things where you're like, oh, why would someone do that?

I think it probably you know, there was a range from just the the the head scratching tattoos to the purely awful uh tattoos. I have a challenge for you guys out there. You come up with the tattoo that I should get, and I'm not saying I'm gonna get it. Okay, I'm just saying because you know, I'm noncommittal, but I'm

intrigued by it. Christian Stein Metts of uh stuff of genius in other house efforts um joints, I suppose um he and I were talking one day and saying that we should get all get like one bonding tattoo and what should that be, And of course the house of logo came up as an idea, which is a question mark if you guys aren't familiar with it. And then we thought, yes, tramp stamps of the House to works logo. And then we quickly decided that's a terrible idea and

so confusing for anybody who might be amorously involved with us. Yeah, it does it. Yeah, I can see that being problematic. Well maybe we should put it. We should all get it right here on our third eye in the penney on Gland. Yes, over the should probably pick one chakra, Just go pick one of these chakras that it relates most to your The sort of content that you produce is for how stuff works, and that's where you get it. I like it. Yeah, what are the car stuff guys

gonna do? Oh? Which which chakra is the automotive chakra. I can't remember the pelvic regions. Yeah, alright, So there you have it. UM A crash course in some of the some of the interesting points of tattooing history and culture that that we found interesting UM as well as the science of tattoos, the science of tattoo removals. And in our next episode we're going to look to some of the more cutting edge UH and indeed the near

future applications of tattoos, the future of tattooing. So look forward to that episode, and in the meantime, make sure you go to stuff to Blow your mind dot com because that is find where you will find all the podcast episodes, all the videos, all the blog posts, as well as links out the various social media accounts that

we maintain. And if you would like to send us your thoughts about tattoos, because I bet you guys have some experiences out there are some things that you'd like to share, you can do that by emailing us a blow the mind at how stuff works dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com.