Eyeball Tattoos? You Can't Make This Shit Up

Found on the Huffpost: Eye Tattoos Become Newest Trend In Prison Although we don't know much about style-behind-bars, we were aware of the body piercing and the tattooing that goes on in the cells...but two prisoners have opened our eyes to the newest self-mutilating trend: eye tattoos that change the sclera to be blue or even red.

When asked why he would do this to himself, David Boltjes (whose eyes are red) poetically remarked, "You can't ask why...the real question is why not," and his fellow inmate, blue-eyed Paul Inman explained that now, no one in the world would have the same color peepers as he has. Neither man would say how they managed to color their eyeballs, but both concurred it was extremely painful.

WTF will these assholes think of next? And if that isn't enough, check this out. Scientists are researching biodegradable, silicon-silk devices that could be implanted inside the human body for various applications, potentially including the development of "LED tattoo" skin displays.

Unlike the current breed of "rigid" implantable chips (such as the ID tags that can be put into pets), these devices would build a silicon circuits into thin films of silk that would be flexible and could conform to the surface of human tissue.

Wired explains that the implants would eventually melt away in the body: The silk substrate onto which the chips are mounted eventually dissolve away inside the body, leaving just the electronics behind. The silicon chips are around the length of a small grain of rice -- about one millimeter, and just 250 nanometers thick, and the sheet of silk will keep them in place, moulding to the shape of the skin when saline is added. So what might be the applications for this technology? According to Wired, "these tattoos could carry LEDs, turning the wearer's skin into a screen." H+ magazine imagines you could show off your latest Flash animations, watch TV on your arm, or have a built-in PDA screen. MIT's Technology Review also notes, "The group is developing silk-silicon LEDs that might act as photonic tattoos that can show blood-sugar readings, as well as arrays of conformable electrodes that might interface with the nervous system." Electronics-maker Philips has conceived of more sensual, personal uses for the devices: Stimulated by touch, an Electronic Tattoo traverses across the landscape of the body, navigated by desire.