Tattoo Tuesday

Medical XPress, An 'intelligent tattoo' to detect skin cancer before it appears

Called SMEAR-ULM, it's a high-tech system that can detect skin cancers at their earliest stages by measuring tiny temperature variations at the surface of the skin. Led by INRS professor Jinyang Liang, the research team has published their findings in Nature Sensors.
...
At the core of the system is a patch of painless microneedles that deposits specialized nanoparticles just beneath the skin. These nanoparticles form a temporary "intelligent tattoo" that behaves like an array of microscopic thermometers.

When illuminated with near-infrared light, the nanoparticles emit visible light. Crucially, the lifetime of this light emission—how long it lasts—depends directly on local temperature. Because cancer cells consume more oxygen and nutrients than healthy cells, they produce additional heat, which can be detected through this optical signal.
...
With this approach, the researchers successfully detected micro-melanomas as early as four days old—a stage at which they are typically far too small to be identified by conventional imaging techniques.

So, do get this over your whole body? My grandfather died on melanoma that started on his ear.