Discuss “How Things Work: Tattoos”

There are a few things in life that mothers don?t want you to return home with. Among them: bad grades, black eyes, and tattoos. Love them or hate them, tattoos are becoming more popular every year. A 2003 Harris poll found that about 16 percent of the U.S. population was tattooed, up from six percent in the 1930s.

Their popularity, however, is not new. Man has been tattooing himself for a long time. Tattoos have been found on Neolithic mummies, detailed in ancient Chinese literature, and discovered by European explorers among tribes in the South Pacific. The technology of tattooing has a similarly diverse history. The art has gone from a primitive process with sticks and ashes to a modern art form using inorganic pigments and sterilized needles....