One would think that few areas of human life are less conducive to rigorous quantitative analysis than nail care. And yet a group of researchers, seeking insight into why nail problems occur, has taken the stuff of Valley Girl stereotypes and transformed it into equations. The basic lesson of their findings, which were just published in Physical Biology? Obsessing over your nails is a surefire route to causing problems in that neck of the woods.
In their study, the researchers focused specifically on ingrown toe nails which, though recognised for a long time, still lack a satisfactory treatment as the causes remain largely unknown.
When devising their equations, the researchers accounted for the strong adhesion of nails to their bed through tiny, microscopic structures, which allow the nail to slide forwards and grow in a “ratchet-like” fashion by continuously binding and unbinding to the nail.
Basically, the more you mess with your nails, the more opportunities you’re providing for those damaging imbalances to occur. No word yet on whether nail salons will start displaying giant posters of complex nail-stress-modeling equations.