Surprising finger facts

• Fingers don't have muscles - fingers are actually moved like puppets on a string, the strings being the tendons which are moved by the muscles of the forearm.
  
• Most autistic children don't point - so this is used as a diagnostic test for autism. They also tend to have unusually long ring fingers compared to their index fingers.
• Guys usually have longer ring fingers than index fingers, girls vice versa - caused by differences in hormone levels (oestrogen and testosterone), this ratio has been shown to be very significant. It indicates such things as fertility, musical and sports aptitude, health and disease, and recently it was found that it can even show whether you are more likely to have a scientific or a social science brain.
  
• Index finger best one to lose - although it seems you need this finger more than any other, hand surgeons say that this is the best one to lose (if you had a choice given by terrorists, say). Fingers are most useful working together, and in this case the index finger is needed the least.
  
• Neanderthals have nimble fingers - contrary to the typical image of Neanderthals as club-wielding, barbaric buffoons, archaeologists have found that they not only had larger brains than us humans, but also that their fingers were just as nimble as ours.
• Fingernails show your state of health - brittle, pale or bluish fingernails are usually bad signs. The nails can indicate problems such as thyroid, anemia, vitamin or mineral deficiencies and liver trouble. Also check horizontal ridges or small indentations - these are indicators of high stress in your recent past - when exactly can be found roughly by checking where on the nail they are (up to a few months ago when close to the tip).
  

See also other recent handlines blog entries:

• Do you have unusual fingerprints?
• Indian boy has 25 fingers, toes

And a BBC radio series that looks at each of the fingers.