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Scientists are doing some really cool stuff, like making the skin of live mice see-through. They did it with a food dye.
Yep, a dye you might have in your kitchen, FD&C Yellow #5, made mice transparent.
“We found that an aqueous solution of a common food color approved by the US Food and Drug Administration, tartrazine, has the effect of reversibly making the skin, muscle, and connective tissues transparent in live rodents,” the study’s authors wrote in their paper published in the journal Science.
Researchers managed this on both the skulls and abdomens of the mice.
“For those who understand the fundamental physics behind this, it makes sense; but if you aren’t familiar with it, it looks like a magic trick,” Dr. Zihao Ou, assistant professor of physics at The University of Texas at Dallas and lead author of the study, said in a statement.
The “magic” happens because dissolving light-absorbing molecules in water changes how light bends through tissue. Essentially, it reduces light scattering in the skin, making it clear.
In their experiments, they applied the water and dye mix to the mice’s skin. Once absorbed, the skin turned transparent. This effect is reversible by washing off any remaining dye.
“It takes a few minutes for the transparency to appear,” Ou said. “It’s similar to the way a facial cream or mask works: The time needed depends on how fast the molecules diffuse into the skin.”
After applying the dye to the skulls, researchers could see blood vessels on the brain’s surface. On their abdomens, they saw internal organs and muscle movements.
Their ultimate goal? To achieve this in humans. But human skin is much thicker than mouse skin—ten times thicker!
“In human medicine, we currently have ultrasound to look deeper inside the living body,” Ou said. “Many medical diagnosis platforms are very expensive and inaccessible to a broad audience, but platforms based on our tech should not be.”
If they succeed with humans, Ou said, “It will completely revolutionize existing optical research in biology.”
