Fingernails Implanted With Magnets

Magnetic Implants have been used in several medical applications from reconstructive surgery to dentistry. But now, it’s reported that some more adventurous people are having them implanted under their skin as a body modification experiment.

Recently, Leigh Honeywell, a Toronto-based student, had magnets implanted in her fingernails at the Gene Juarez salon in Seattle. She wrote about her experience in her blog:

The basics of nail enhancements are as follows: your natural nails get filed down, and acrylic or gel is applied in a multi-stage process. With gel, the nails need less filing, and each layer gets cured under a UV light. We used tiny parylene-encases magnetic stirrers.  One of the benefits of the gel we used – as acetone doesn’t dissolve it, I can take the polish off and change it.

I can feel ferrous materials strongly and easily with the backs of my fingers.  It’s a very gentle pull, and is totally fascinating.  I can’t feel much of anything through the pads of my fingers.  I feel a very light buzz near things with strong magnetic fields, but it’s really subtle to the point where I’m not yet convinced it’s real – I expect I’ll get more attuned to it in the next little bit.  For now it just tickles. I can pick up pretty substantial objects, like the magnet from inside an old hard drive.

Hypatia: “Magnetic fingernails”

[via Makezine]