Conspicuously long fingernails have been around for centuries. Portraits of ancient Chinese philosopher Confucius often show his lengthy nails. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties in China, inches-long nails were adorned with elaborate nail guards made from precious substances like jade to convey high social standing, wealth and a life of leisure. Fast forward 600 years and the custom is alive and well, evidenced by the ubiquity of nail salons. For anyone needing to perform everyday tasks like access a touchscreen phone (in other words, pretty much everyone), superlong fingernails are impractical. But what if you could turn them into a stylus? An experimental conductive nail polish could transform the humble manicure into a functional tool. Skyler Ware nails the write-up for SN.
🥼 From lab coat to top coat
The research was born from necessity, when undergraduate chemistry student Manasi Desai was struggling to type on her touchscreen. With her adviser Joshua Lawrence, an organometallic chemist at Centenary College of Louisiana in Shreveport, Desai developed a blend of taurine (a common dietary supplement) and ethanolamine (possibly toxic in larger doses, so further testing is needed). They suspect that together, these molecules move charge around in response to a touchscreen’s electric field, just enough for the device to register a touch event.
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