Logo carved onto human hair

Boing Boing Gadgets' Joel Johnson was at McMaster University yesterday where he met a researcher who used a focus ion beam microsocope to carve his school's logo on a human hair. I would love one for my wunderkammer! More info over at BBG. Link

David Pescovitz is Boing Boing's co-editor/managing partner. He's also a research director at Institute for the Future. On Instagram, he's @pesco.

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anthropomorphictoast

@4: OMG, my thoughts precisely. Now all they need is that device that can zoom in and around things in a photograph.
agoodsandwich

Who do I talk to about selling advertising rights to my hair?
Takuan

which invites the awkward question of who -or what – would be reading this advertising
Katanma

I went to McMaster. Sure, they can do this, but they whine and moan over providing three new computers to the Humanities department.

I’m a little bitter, yes.
Antinous

Are you crazy? Advertisers have been dying to get a foothold in the pediculus demographic.
assumetehposition

Of course it’s real. The ion beam would be move on a flat plane, so even though it’s cutting onto a curved surface, it appears flat. Don’t expect it to curve around like shrink wrap packaging.
JakeTheSnake

@29, 32 Generally it’s not the University providing the money for the sciences, but an external organization (NSF, DOD, etc). You just need to figure out how to sell your humanities studies to the military.

Only half joking.
JakeTheSnake

http://xkcd.com/331/ seems sort of relevant here.

Generally, scientists are loath to publish things that are faked, as a community, we don’t take it well when we discover it, eg the case of Jan Hendrik Schon.

Those images are not particularly difficult to make (for real) with FIB.

What I always find amusing is the misplaced credulity on the internet – this gets doubted, but people want to think that the latest perpetual motion machine might just work.

~~~
owza

Looking at the way light/shade tracks cuticle lift, I’d say it was real.
DeMONic

The fact that it is planar leads more to its authenticity anyway. The only way to have it mill “correctly” into a curved or cylindrical surface is to adjust the final lens voltage proportional to the curvature of the surface. A LEO (Zeiss) FIB cant easily do this.
Takuan

well jeez, have ya tried a hotter camshaft?
tikal2k

#15: Or account for the curvature ahead of time and adjust the source image accordingly (compressing the image along y-axis for the distant surfaces) so the final projected image is milled “correctly.”
Takuan

can’t you roll the hair under the beam?
tikal2k

#18: They would need a way to secure the hair and move it with precision underneath the beam, like a laser printer. It’s probably mechanically easier right now to just fix the hair in position and just move the beam instead.
tikal2k

This piece by Justin Ladda is pretty cool:
http://www.justenladda.com/pages/pages%20installations/TheThing1.html
Takuan

cool,guess he used a projector
MF_Cupcake

#36

Culture studies is doing okay, but literature is going way downhill. They are not even offering science fiction until 4th year.

Even as a Physics-Math major I am sure you can appreciate fine lit like Cory Doctorow.
DarthTurducken

Dude, it’s Photoshopped. You can tell by the pixels. I’ve seen a few ‘shops in my day, and I can tell ya, trust me. :P
ablestmage

@14, Oh yeah, I mean, surely no one would could possibly doubt the unprovable statement of science here. Why, they just discovered a planet light years away that may be less than 2000 years old. With their portable inverse-dichromium deflector array. Aligned with the flux variance tachyon particle stream within twelve microns.
Seedouble

I’d say these particular images are shooped. The second image appears to be a watermark because of the angle of the logo relative to the cropping of the picture and the hair itself. I don’t doubt that people have done it, but I think these are simulations.
Takuan

so,a FIB is what I need to mill perfect dies for counterfeit coins?
DeMONic

Tikal2k – here is a link to the current series of FIB (actually dual beam) systems used to do this specific work. (although this is probably on an older series of FIB system – universities usually dont have the cash to buy new ones)

http://www.smt.zeiss.com/C1256E4600305472/Contents-Frame/40C720DCA03B0C6CC1256E5400416DEE

FEI and DCG Systems are other manufacturers of commercial FIB systems
Fatal Bert

@22, Focused Ion Beam
David Carroll

Please look at “I suck at photoshop” episode 106 where we try to duplicate this ion beam carving.

P.S. I really do suck at Photoshop. But it’s the thought that counts right?
ablestmage

Isn’t that a little difficult to prove? The above picture looks like a simple watermark.
iguanoid

This isn’t fake. These are a dime a dozen. I think its the first thing students attempt to do when they train on the FIB and find out that you can mill stream files.
Mike8787

This advertising scheme is sure to catch on quickly.
Xopher

Next: hair follicles gengineered to have the corporate logo of the gengineering company on them naturally.
MF_Cupcake

#29 haha so true.
And it has only gone down hill. Now the humanities is so dire that instead of 4 seminars in honours English it is down to 3 since there are not enough courses offered.

I am very bitter. Only 1 more year :S
macemoneta

Shades of Blade Runner.
noen

Future copyright nightmare – your hair stylist puts their corporate logo on your finished hair style. Therefore they own it and you are forbidden to alter it.
HittiteCreosote

Not fake, but very easy to do – the system I use you can just take a RGB bitmap, load it in as a pattern file, and run it. As Iguanoid says, there is barely a lab where these instruments haven’t been used to put down the company or university logo.

This image looks flat and uncontoured as it is being imaged by the ion beam that was used to write it – if they’d tilted the sample slightly after writing and before imaging (or used an electron beam to image in a dual beam system), then you’d have seen the distortion of the pattern due to the surface morphology of the hair it was written on.
OT9

Layer style > darken.
Moon

There’s an old tale about American Scientists in the 19th Century who were so proud of their tiny wire, they sent it to Germany.

The German scientists sent it back with a hole in it.
trr

OT9,
I think you’re right. The logo doesn’t follow the contour of the hair. Photoshop or GIMP did it, not a focused-ion beam.
Moon

I’ll bet that Arab language and culture studies could get you some funding from the military!

You just have to be a little imaginative!

/I thought that’s what you humanities types were good at. Pbbbbbtttt!

/Physics-Math major
Takuan

? does that mean you never read any history?
anthony

The new tattoo.
habil

This advertising scheme is sure to catch on quickly.
MF_Cupcake

I go to school at Mac, but I’m only a lonely English undergrad. Still I can comfirm to you that this is real and that McMaster will sink to all new lows if it means more money for the business.