Getting behind the wheel after one too many drinks? A tattoo might be your savior.
A team of researchers at University of California San Diego (UCSD) designed a “temporary tattoo” with an electronic sensor that allows drinkers to check their own sobriety. The tattoo with a small electronic board magnetically attached to it is stuck on a user’s skin. The tattoo delivers a drug called pilocarpine, which generates sweat on the surface of the skin. Sensors in the tattoo measure the alcohol, or ethanol, content in the sweat. The electronic board then transmits the information to a user’s phone via bluetooth.
Transdermal bracelets have also been developed that can track alcohol consumption.
To make the sensors in the tattoo “all the electrodes were fabricated by a screen-printing technique,” which costs less than $1, Kim said in an interview.
