Chemists, some of them, do pay attention to their fingernails. A team at the University of California, La Jolla (an institution that seems to exist on April 1, when it apparently migrates from San Diego), has paid special attention. Details are in their study:
“A Wearable Fingernail Chemical Sensing Platform: pH Sensing at Your Fingertips,” Jayoung Kim, Thomas N. Cho, Gabriela Valdés-Ramírez, Joseph Wang, Talanta, vol. 150, April 1, 2016, pp. 622–628. The authors explain:
“Here we introduce the first demonstration of a wearable fingernail chemical-sensor platform. The objective of this work is to demonstrate the first example of a wearable chemical sensor on a fingernail platform. Fingernails represent an attractive wearable platform, offering portability and possibility to merge technology with beauty and fashion products, thus reflecting growing trends toward more stylish wearable devices. While several efforts have been made on developing fingernail-based sensors, none has been developed for chemical sensing.”
Here’s further detail from the study:
BONUS (by some of the same researchers): Tattoo-Based Noninvasive Glucose Monitoring: A Proof-of-Concept Study