The article in question appeared in the British magazine "Nature" in the
early to mid-1980's. Although it demonstrated that there may be an
electrostatic effect during daguerreotype development, it was never
presented as a viable image-making technique.
If you want to explore weird variations on the daguerreotype process,
there was also an article by Roger Barton in "Photohistory" back in the
late 1970's to early 1980's about "Daguerreotypes on Copper." He gives
some good ideas for improvising daguerreotype equipment, but I
have seen examples of his results and I would stick to silver plates.
Gregory Walker
Digital Daguerreian Archive -- http://www.webcom.com/gwalker/digidag/
"Electronic Texts from the Dawn of Photography"