Have Your Own Physical Examination Simply By Tattooing Yourself

The recent study conducted at the University of Missouri had beneficial results for everyone trying to reduce ridiculously high health expenses. If you are willing to examine yourself on your own, now you can do that.

What we use a pencil and paper for is about to change for the better. The researchers reported several pencil-paper-based on-skin devices such as biophysical sensors, sweat biochemical sensors, thermal stimulators, and humidity energy harvesters. When writing, pencils that are made of %90 graphite can create a form of energy due to friction between paper and pencil. As a result, one will able to draw on-skin with a bioelectronic device on a basic copy paper. Yan Zheng, assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical, Biological & Chemical Engineering, University of Missouri, declared a biocompatible spray-on adhesive applied to the paper ables it to stick properly on skin, reports Science Daily. 

The results are published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

How it works

How a commercial on-skin biomedical device works is easy. Including two principal components, a biomedical tracking component and a surrounding flexible material set the base for a structure to sustain the connection between the person and his skin, explains Yan. 

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Apparently, the invention will serve for more purposes than just a basic physical examination. One example is implied by Yan, a possible reason-detector for sleeping issues as "we could draw a biomedical device that could help monitor that person’s sleep levels.” The other benefit of the study could enable scientists in times of crisis as the COVID-19 pandemic took place this year, to have their researches at home. 

Simple is better

Considering a pencil and a piece of paper are recyclable and relatively cheap materials than the average medical product, let's say a stethoscope to auscultate one's heartbeat, this invention has a great chance of overtaking the traditional.

Summarizing the conventional approach to develop such devices as usually complex and expensive, Yan explains “In contrast, our approach is low-cost and very simple. We can make a similar device using widely available pencils and paper.”