Tattoos mark the spot—for surgery—then disappear

Tattoos aren’t just for body art. They can have medical applications, too. Doctors are using them on patients to mark an area for future treatment—particularly for non-melanoma skin cancer such as basal cell carcinoma—but the inks can cause problems. Now scientists have developed a better solution. In the journal ACS Nano, they report a new ink that glows only under certain light conditions and can disappear altogether after a period of time.