Tattoos, once associated with people in the margins of society, such as sailors or bikers, are now a fairly popular form of body modification. In a 2006 report in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, 24 percent of Americans aged 18 to 50 years old have at least one tattoo.

Tattoos combine medical skill and artistry in a way that is now accessible to nearly everyone. John Leal, a sheriff who has been a previous customer of Urban Body: Body Piercing and Tattoo in downtown Davis, said, “For me they have a religious meaning.” On one shoulder he has a cross with “John 3:16” written underneath; on his other arm he has the statement “Think Eternal.” Last Friday, he accompanied his daughter Jessica for her first tattoo.

“I just want one,” she said. “They have meaning to me.”

With tattoos now so common in America, do people understand how tattoos work?

The tattoo artist punctures the skin with a special needle in order to inject the ink. The tool contains a sterilized needle, a tube system that draws ink out from the machine, an electric motor and a foot pedal that controls the depth of the needle.

The layer of skin receiving the ink is important in the permanence of the art. The inner layer of skin, called the dermis, is the layer into which the ink is injected. The skin cells in the dermis are alive and stable which ensures that the tattoo will remain – sometimes with minor fading – for the rest of the person’s life.

Any kind of puncture carries with it a risk of infection, so the tattoo artist will do a great deal of work in order to decrease the risk as much as possible. During his training, Urban Body tattoo artist Chris Yoakum underwent classes about blood-borne diseases and safety practices, such as the use of the autoclave – a machine that uses temperature and pressure to kill bacterial spores.

“All of the needles are single-use and autoclaved by the manufacturers,” Yoakum said. “The materials that can be reused, like the ink tubes, are sterilized before and after every single use.”

An ultrasonic machine is used to remove particulate matter from the equipment, then autoclaved to remove all of the spores.

The customer’s skin is then shaved and disinfected.

The tattoo artist will start by stenciling on the person’s skin with pen to ensure smoothness of design when the skin stretches under the tattoo machine. Then, the artist will make the permanent outline of the tattoo using a small needle and thin ink. The outline is shaded using thicker ink and color is overlapped to ensure that there are no “holidays” – places where the color has lifted out due to the area healing or the artist missing a section of skin.

When the tattoo is completed, a disposable towel wipes up excess blood and the area is bandaged. Most bleeding stops within a few minutes. The sanitation precautions prevent the spread of blood-borne pathogens like hepatitis and tuberculosis.

When tattoo artists follow the correct sanitation procedures, the risk of an infection is very low, and according to the CDC there has never been a documented case of HIV spread through tattooing. However, there are still small numbers of unregulated tattoo settings, such as prisons or in the homes of amateur artists, who don’t use the proper equipment or sterilization procedures. Such practices can lead to a greater risk of infections like Hepatitis C.

Once the tattoo is in the skin, it can’t be easily removed. The method of choice for a regretful tattoo customer is laser tattoo removal. An intense light passes through the top layer of skin to selectively break up the ink pigments into fragments, which are removed by the body’s immune system.

There is no regret from Urban Body customers Jessica or John, however. Jessica’s chest now displays a rose and a rosary, adding her to the growing numbers of young Americans with body art.

AMY STEWART can be reached at science@theaggie.org.

The New York Botanical Garden has just carved and displayed the world’s largest pumpkin. The pumpkin weighs 1,811 pounds, or 10 pounds less than the entire cast of “Thintervention With Jackie Warner.”

Scientists have been trying to figure out what allows these super pumpkins, grown from Atlantic giant pumpkin seeds, to get so large. The answer, recently discovered from the use of computer models, is stress. The computer models were created during the most fun laboratory experiment ever conducted. Pumpkins at various stages of growth were placed in a giant compactor, and were then compressed until they miraculously exploded in a cloud of pumpkin pulp and gore.

Using the models, scientists deduced that once the pumpkins reach about 220 pounds, their own weight causes the pumpkin to stretch and bend, which in turn causes the cells that make up the outer shell to tear and pull apart.

Sites of damage and stress are where the most cellular genesis and repair occur. The process becomes circular; the bigger the pumpkin gets, the more stress the cells endure, causing the pumpkin to grow even further out. These giant pumpkins can grow up to 50 pounds a day without bursting.

Farmers must find a delicate balance between final size of the pumpkin and growth rate. If the pumpkin grows too fast, it will collapse under its own weight. However, the pumpkin must also grow fast enough to be at final size within the ideal growing period.

Fun fact: The record-breaking pumpkin has enough material to make about 160 pumpkin pies. That does not include the 110 pounds of seeds.

– Hudson Lofchie

For more science snippets follow Hudson on Twitter: @HudtacularSci.

It was over 20 hours of coach-seated travel from Sacramento International to the Nairobi airport. That meant about five movies, one and a half books, one hour socializing/eating and six hours of sleep.

And why, you ask, did I choose Kenya, of all places, as my summer vacation? The answer: ants.

I have worked over the past year and a half on extracting and analyzing ant DNA in a UC Davis ecology lab. With this information, we can compare the relationships between multiple species of ants that form mutualisms (a relationship between two organisms who both benefit from the others existence – like flowers and bees) with the African acacia tree.

But where do the ant samples we extract come from? That’s right, Kenya.

So this summer, I vacationed to Kenya with my professor to collect more ant samples. And this is where my story begins.

Because Kenya sits nearly on the equator, the sun rises at 6 a.m. and sets at 6 p.m. Thus, due to a combination of my 10-hour jet lag and the early rising sun, I got up close to 6:10 a.m. daily.

Around 7:30 a.m. I had breakfast with my professor and the other researchers there. Breakfast usually consisted of homemade bread with honey and a cup of delicious Kenyan tea. A couple weeks into my stay, we had to purchase a bunch of squirt guns from town as weapons against the overly aggressive gang of birds who surrounded our table every morning.

Here’s the exciting part: my sexy get-up. It started with my nylons, then mismatched high ankle socks. I sprayed mosquito repellent all up and down my legs. Then time for my three-times-too-big cargo pants, four pound hiking boots, undershirt and long sleeve shirt.

Now the practicalities. Wide-brimmed safari hat, sunglasses, knee high snake gaiters, backpack, water bottle, binoculars, clip board, sunscreen and finally, my beloved fanny pack, fully equipped with forceps, garden nippers, sharpie, ethanol-filled vials and a compass. Then a second coat of mosquito repellent.

If you’re having a hard time with that mental image, just know, it was hot.

My professor and I, along with our two field assistants, then took out our elderly lime green Range Rover, named Kermit, on the 10-minute safari to the fields. Now by safari, I do literally mean safari. It was 10 minutes of ditch-ridden dirt road, and non-stop sightings of baboons, birds, impalas, giraffes, zebras, ostriches, antelope, elephants and if I was lucky, a lion or leopard.

Culture shock? Yeah, you could say that.

Upon arriving in the field, my inner-nerd was unleashed.

Here’s a simplified run-down of what we were studying:

A very common species of tree in Kenya, Acacia drepanolobium, has obligate mutualisms with three species of ants, Crematogaster mimosae, Crematogaster nigriceps and Tetraponera penzigi. These ants, all in very different ways, live off the golf-ball-sized swollen thorns of the acacia tree and its fruits, while in return the ants protect the trees from herbivores.

What’s amazing is that these ant species all compete against each other for the trees. Each has their own pattern of pruning the tree to maximize their competitive status. For example, one species prunes their trees branches away from neighboring trees of other species. This decreases the probability of takeover by the other species. Colonies of ants are constantly looking to expand their territory. The acacia tree fields are literally an ant battleground.

One day we spotted a dark patch near the side of the road. Ants. All four of us knelt down to find that it was a war between ant species. By the time we got there, the casualties were immense. Dead ants covered the ground. But there was no surrender yet. There were ants in pairs, threes and up to groups of five, all biting at each other while twisting around in circles. Needless to say, it was a gory sight.

The most brutal of them all were the queen ants. The queens are the establishers of the colonies. They fly to whatever baby acacia tree looks best, and lay their eggs in one of the newly-budded swollen thorns. When inspecting these thorns to see what species is currently inhabiting it, we quickly discovered that these queens don’t play nice.

Often queens settle into thorns where another species of queen has already laid her brood. This is where the battle ensues. In multiple thorns, the triumphant queen had stuffed the losing queen’s head into the entrance hole she made to get in. This blocked any other queens from entering the thorn. And perhaps served as a warning to anyone even thinking about it. Sick, but crafty.

After a long day of work in the blazing hot field, we would drive back to Mpala in time for lunch and the regular thunderstorms.

Then, after a couple hours of lab work, I would walk to the nearby village to play soccer with the kids, many of whom at age five could outplay a once-varsity soccer player. They kicked my butt (always a good self-esteem booster).

Call me a nerd, but flying half way around the world to meet and study my true love is my idea of a true exotic romance.

CAMMIE ROLLE can be reached at science@theaggie.org.

One out of every seven women in the U.S. will get breast cancer over a 90-year lifespan, reports BreastCancer.org. While the disease is rare in college-age students, women under 40 do account for 7 percent of breast cancer cases, according to the American Cancer Society.

But if cancer is caught early enough, 90 percent of patients survive – and a new treatment offered at the UC Davis Cancer Center is helping revolutionize care at this critical point. The treatment takes only five days and is so low-impact that patients can start radiation on Monday, finish on Friday, and go out for drinks to celebrate that night.

“We’ve done things like this, but before, we were using dozens of catheters implanted through different sites with dozens of incisions,” said Steven Chen, a radiation oncologist at the UC Davis Cancer Center. “It really is as barbaric as it sounds. The version we’re using is a newer generation of catheters that allows us to be more precise.”

The new catheters, said Chen, are arranged in a ring of six to 10 tubes, depending on how large the surgically removed tumor was. Tumors bigger than three centimeters are not eligible for the treatment. The single, slim bundle of tubes is planted in the cavity left behind after the tumor was removed, leaving only one bundle dangling from the skin instead of dozens of individual needles.

During the five-day radiation course, a radioactive seed is slipped down one catheter in the bundle, into the precise spot where the cancer is most likely to return. This extra degree of precision is why doctors are as enthusiastic about the treatment of their patients.

Traditionally, early breast cancer gets blasted with radiation. After the tumor is excised in surgery, the entire breast gets a daily dose of radiation for six weeks. But the new treatment takes only two sessions a day for five days – and the radiation is confined to the crucial spots.

“When you do whole-breast radiation, there’s always the issue of damaging some skin,” Chen said. “On top of that, [the radiation] often [harms] some chest wall muscles, the heart and the ribs. With this new procedure, you’re radiating less tissue overall. You have a greater ability to sculpt the radiation into the place that needs it.”

Side effects of this treatment are hard to predict since the procedure is so new, said Chen, but it certainly beats old methods. The breast tissue at the radiation site might scar or harden in some cases, but compared to older techniques, which threaten bruising, blistering and higher infection risk from multiple incisions, this new approach is safer and more pleasant.

The cancer center started offering this treatment about a month ago, and has already performed nine operations.

Chen used the new method for the first time this week, and reported that everything is going smoothly. With older-generation catheters, said Chen, the tumor site had to meet stringent criteria: the cavity had to be perfectly round to accommodate the inflatable balloon that used to cap the catheter, and the site had to be far enough from vital organs that the radiation wouldn’t damage anything.

“[The new technique] is easier for us, for sure. I don’t really want go back to the operating room after doing a lumpectomy,” Chen said.

Jyoti Mayadev, the radiation oncologist who performed the other eight procedures, told UC Davis News that the new treatment boosts the cancer center’s tumor-fighting arsenal. It lets doctors work on a wider variety of tumors and aim the radiation more precisely, while making patients more comfortable.

“We can increase the local control while significantly lowering radiation doses to critical areas,” Mayadev said, “potentially decreasing the risk of long-term radiation effects such as cardiac morbidity and radiation lung scarring.”

EMILY GOYINS can be reached at science@theaggie.org.