Fingerprinting, long since the clichéd method for catching the bad guys in crime movies, is now turning its umm… metaphorical finger on junkies.
Soon, a new method of fingerprinting, being developed by a group called Intelligent Fingerprinting, will be able to identify drugs in someone’s system by detecting traces of the drug secreted in your sweat and consolidated on one’s fingertip.
Essentially, the process works by applying gold nanoparticles coated with antibodies to a fingerprint (what, you’ve never toyed around with gold nanoparticles?). At that point, fluorescent dyes in the antibodies show drug metabolites on the fingerprints. These dyes can pick up traces of nicotine, Valium, vicodin, marijuana, ecstasy and alcohol, c-c-c-c-c-cocaine.
[via Gizmodo]
