Scientists have been working for many years to design something to replace the dull act of washing hands.

I for one am delighted, I’ve been telling all my friends that someone really needs to zazz-up the whole bathroom experience with lasers. I do have some little concerns with sticking your hand into a box filled with face-melting lasers a la Terminator.

The designers said they wanted to provide an alternative for doctors so they wouldn’t have to spend so long washing their hands and getting dishpan hands.

The plasma is created at room temperature and pressure by running electrical current through air. The resulting gas (found in fluorescent lights, plasma TVs, Halo guns and neon signs) can zap anything from bacteria to viruses, even the troublesome MSRA.

Even scientists, however, don’t assuage my fear of ending my hand model career with one of these things.

Mark Kushner, the director of the Michigan Institute for Plasma Science, described his 16-year-old boy’s approach to science to the New York Times.

“Many thousands of volts drive the generation of plasma,” he said, “and normally one doesn’t want to touch thousands of volts.” But the design of the new hand sanitizers, he said, protects people from doing so.

Reassured by that design, about five years ago he put his naked thumb into a jet of microbe-destroying plasma at the lab of another plasma researcher.

“It was just one of those leaps of faith,” he said. (His thumb survived just fine.)

Sure, plasma streams are just like electric fences.

Check out one more mockup of the inside of the plasma hand wash, but note that nobody would put their hand inside for the picture.

[Via NY Times]

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