[imagesource: Hashem Al-Ghaili/Facebook]

Scientists at Stanford University were recently able to make a mouse’s skin transparent using a common food dye called Yellow 5.

They now believe this could have exciting benefits for humans and published their findings in a paper, titled “Achieving optical transparency in live animals with absorbing molecules”.

The abdomen, scalp, and hindlimb of a sedated mouse were treated by the researchers with a solution of red tartrazine, a food colouring known as FD&C Yellow 5. The dye caused the mouse’s skin to become red, which in turn caused the skin to seem translucent and reveal the mouse’s internal organs.

Fortunately, the effects were not permanent and the mouse’s skin returned to normal once the dye had been washed off.

“The researchers believe this is the first non-invasive approach to achieving visibility of a mouse’s living internal organs.”

According to Dr Guosong Hong, senior author of the publication and assistant professor of materials science and engineering at Stanford, “The most surprising part of this study is that we usually expect dye molecules to make things less transparent. For example, if you mix blue pen ink in water, the more ink you add, the less light can pass through the water.”

“Yet when tartrazine was dissolved in skin or muscle – normally opaque materials – “the clearer the material becomes – but only in the red part of the light spectrum.”

The capacity to briefly make skin translucent “could offer a variety of benefits in biology, diagnostics and even cosmetics,” according to Hong, even though this study has only been conducted on animals.

To see what’s going on beneath the skin, doctors currently depend on an array of expensive imaging techniques—x-rays, ultrasound, magnetic resonance imaging, endoscopy, etc.

“For example,” he added, “instead of relying on invasive biopsies, doctors might be able to diagnose deep-seated tumours by simply examining a person’s tissue without the need for invasive surgical removal.”

FD&C Yellow 5 can be found in a wide variety of foods, including drinks, candies, chips, and pastries, including Doritos.

Hong however discourages anyone from rubbing themselves with Doritos just yet, saying “We strongly discourage attempting this on the human skin, as the toxicology of dye molecules in humans, particularly when applied topically, has not been fully evaluated.”

[source:foxnews]