Scientists Have Been Searching for the Elixir of Invisibility for Decades. It Turns Out It Was in the Most Unexpected Place: Doritos

A new and remarkable scientific breakthrough could hold the potential to fulfill a long-held dream of many scientists. For years, researchers have envisioned creating an invisibility cloak akin to those depicted in books and films. The fact that the latest discovery allowed researchers to make the body parts of mice transparent using a dye similar to the one found in Doritos is surprising, to say the least.

The food coloring. The distinctive orange color left on your fingers after eating Doritos is caused by a common yellow food coloring called tartrazine, the same coloring used in various soft drinks and snacks.

In a groundbreaking study reminiscent of a sci-fi novel, Stanford researchers discovered that there’s a simple way to observe the inner workings of the body. In particular, they developed a biologically safe coloring that makes tissue transparent by manipulating the light-scattering properties of the fluids surrounding cells. And yes, the secret to achieving this lies in the Doritos dye.

The discovery. As Stanford scientists point out, tartrazine, also known as Yellow 5, can make biological tissue temporarily transparent to the naked eye due to a fundamental physics principle that’s counterintuitive. Using this method, they were able to see organs in the intact abdomen of a mouse, observe the pulsating vessels surrounding a rodent’s skull, and obtain a clear view of muscle tissue through a microscope.

There’s more. According to the study, with more research into safety and efficacy, the method could lead to new scientific findings, advances in microscopy, and improvements in medical diagnostic strategies and treatments. “I instantly looked at it and went, ‘My God, this is revolutionary,’” Christopher Rowlands, a researcher at Imperial College London, says.

The method. What’s even more surprising is that the method needed is apparently simple. By massaging the skin of a hairless mouse with a tartrazine solution for a few minutes or by microneedling, scientists can achieve “complete optical transparency in the red region of the visible spectrum,” according to the study. When the dye is removed, the skin returns to its natural, opaque state. Magic.

To be precise, within five minutes of applying the dye, the opaque skin of the mice temporarily transformed into a living window, revealing branching blood vessels, muscle fibers, and contractions of the intestine.

The “trick.” Study co-author Guosong Hong explains that “Biological tissues, like skin, are usually not see-through because light gets scattered as it passes through them.” This is due to the different materials in animal skin, mainly water and fats, which refract the light at different angles. Normally, a light particle passing through tissue goes from being a water particle to a lipid particle, bounces off, travels a long way, and is often absorbed by molecules it collides with.

However, according to Hong, the tartrazine dye, by absorbing blue light wavelengths, changes the refractive index of water so that it’s much closer to that of fat. This is achieved through a basic physics principle called the Kramers-Kronig relations, which governs the behavior of waves, including those of light. As a result, a photon can pass through the skin almost as if the tissue were uniform. This shorter path reduces the probability of light absorption, ultimately illuminating the inside of a mouse.

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