• Question: can you get a pill to turn you a different colour? if so, how does this work?

    Asked by catherineeqi to Arttu, Ceri, James_M, Monica, Philip on 17 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Philip Dolan

      Philip Dolan answered on 17 Jun 2011:

      I have no idea. I think if you eat lots of carrots you turn orange tho. Something to do with the beta carotene (which makes carrots orange) being deposited in a layer of your skin. If you could concentrate this into a pill it might work. I guess then you could find chemicals that will behave similarly but are different colours.

      Biologist rely on attaching dye molecules of many different colours to proteins in cells so they can see them under microscopes.

      I gotta say though, don’t try and do any experimentation that involve eating chemicals. It’ll probably end badly.

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