Ink is one of those things we take for granted – it will run when wet and pens will explode occassionally on aircraft and that is simply a constant of the world. Some innovators and inventors over at Inventables, however, are challenging our most basic assumptions about this standardized material.

One of the biggest challenges in writing on paper is the tendency for ink to smear and bleed when it becomes wet. This creative marker design not only can withstand getting wet after-the-fact but can even write through water onto already-wet surfaces.

The functionality of this is perhaps dubious but the idea is somehow brilliant: an ink that is magnetized. What could you do with it? Seems like it has some artistic potential but otherwise is simply another material to have in our palette of available inks.

Remember those hide-and-reveal inks from when we were young? Well, this one does not require a decoding ink to make it visible but it does demand that the person who wishes to see the hidden writing know that it can only be activated by the presence of heat.