Headlines on Human Hands

Fingerprints amplify and filter out vibrations

noreply@blogger.com (h.l.) — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 12:44:00 +0000

To anyone who has ever worn gloves, this might already be obvious - there is something special about fingerprints such that they send accurate information back to the brain about the surface of the object you are holding. Fingerprints enable your hands to do the most delicate of tasks.

Research has now shown exactly how this works - by creating a tactile sensor with "fingerprints" and one with a smooth surface, and measuring the difference between the two.

Interestingly, "the researchers noted that their artificial fingerprints worked only if the direction of motion was perpendicular to the direction of the ridges. Thankfully, the whorls, arches, and loops on real human fingertips mean that swiping in any direction will activate the filtering effect. This could imply that the contours of our fingerprints are patterned to optimize texture perception"

I wonder about this, because the ridges of arches can be relatively 'horizontal', i.e. in one direction only. Does this mean that people with arches may have a lower sensitivity when swiping the finger in the same direction as the ridges? That would be an interesting experiment.

Source: discovermagazine

Fingerprints can now be used to detect drug use and disease

noreply@blogger.com (h.l.) — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 09:45:00 +0000

"Fingerprints could be used to detect traces of drugs or explosives in one of the most significant improvements in the technology for years.

Police now have the ability to analyse the traces of cannabis, cocaine and other drugs, or explosives, in a fingerprint itself.

The new technique reveals, in extraordinary detail, the chemical compounds that make up the print and could also find medical uses, since tiny traces of chemicals at our fingertips could signal the presence of a disease or an illness."

"Researchers can detect minute traces of compounds - marked as dots on the print - that were on the fingertips of the person who left the print."

Source: Telegraph

FBI to build massive database of palm prints and other physical characteristics

noreply@blogger.com (h.l.) — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 20:31:00 +0000

"The FBI is gearing up to create a massive computer database of people's physical characteristics, all part of an effort the bureau says to better identify criminals and terrorists.

First up, he said, are palm prints. The FBI has already begun collecting images and hopes to soon use these as an additional means of making identifications. Countries that are already using such images find 20 percent of their positive matches come from latent palm prints left at crime scenes, the FBI's Bush said.

You don't have to be a criminal or a terrorist to be checked against the database. More than 55 percent of the checks the FBI runs involve criminal background checks for people applying for sensitive jobs in government or jobs working with vulnerable people such as children and the elderly, according to the FBI.

The ACLU's Steinhardt doesn't believe it will stop there.

"This had started out being a program to track or identify criminals," he said. "Now we're talking about large swaths of the population -- workers, volunteers in youth programs. Eventually, it's going to be everybody."

Source: www.cnn.com

Glance at the Past - Palmistry in 1943

noreply@blogger.com (h.l.) — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 14:00:00 +0000

An article in Time magazine from 1943, 65 years ago, shows that handreading was taken a lot more seriously back then. While not endorsing the practice, the article does give the subject some serious reflection. In addition, handreaders are referred to as "artists", which is much more palatable than "fraudsters" and "con-men", which is how they are often seen today. Here's an extract from the article:

"To artists, and a few scientists, the hand is as revealing as the face in expressing temperament, heredity, life habits, glandular function. One such scientist, Dr. Charlotte Wolff, physician and psychologist, last week gave her second summary of findings in the science of chirology. In The Human Hand (Alfred A. Knopf, $3) she carried on her rescue of the hand from the hocus-pocus of palmistry and fortunetelling, gave laymen some interesting reading as well."

Read the full article

Thanks to Lynn Seal for digging this article up.

Indian Girl with Eight Limbs named after multi-limbed Hindu goddess

noreply@blogger.com (h.l.) — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 08:55:00 +0000

"An Indian girl born with four arms and four legs is to undergo a 40-hour operation tomorrow as doctors try to give her a chance at a normal life.

Lakshmi Tatma is a two-year-old girl named after the Hindu goddess of wealth who has four arms. She was believed to have been "sent from God" when she was born to a poor rural family in the Indian state of Bihar.

As news of her birth spread among the 500 inhabitants of Rampur Kodar Katti — a remote settlement without electricity or running water — men, women and children queued for a darshan, or blessing, from the baby.

However, it will require the latest techniques in medical science to separate Lakshmi from her "parasitical", headless, undeveloped "twin", which is joined to her body at the pelvis.

source: dailymail.co.uk, telegraph.co.uk

Chimps, baboons, use hands to communicate

noreply@blogger.com (h.l.) — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 10:02:00 +0000

"A study of how baboons gesture with their hands suggests gesturing may have been a precursor to human language, scientists say.

The findings could help to explain why humans often gesture with their hands, and particularly the right hand, when they speak.

The right hand is controlled by the brain's left hemisphere, which is the source of most linguistic functions.

Scientists believe communication by hand probably existed in apes 30 million years ago and was a forerunner to spoken and written language.

French researchers Adrien Meguerditchian and Professor Jacques Vauclair studied a particular hand gesture in 60 captive baboons.

The gesture consists of quick and repetitive rubbing or slapping of the hand on the ground, and is used to threaten or intimidate others.

The researchers, from the University of Provence, say this motion "might be comparable in humans to the slap of ... one hand toward the palm of the other hand".

For the study, which is published in the journal Behavioural Brain Research, the researchers observed this gesture as it occurred naturally.

They also triggered it by having a human abruptly shake his head and then glance at a baboon. Head shaking is another threatening move in the ape and monkey world, which includes all sorts of communicative gestures.

"A nonhuman primate can effectively raise an arm to ask a social partner to groom it ... give another a little slap as an invitation to play, touch furtively the hand or genitals of another to greet it, slap the ground to threaten," the researchers say.

Among the baboons in the test group that favoured a certain hand, 78% were right-handed and tended to gesture with this hand. Other studies have shown that most human babies and deaf individuals also communicate with their right hands.

"There is little chance that our [primate] cousins will evolve language skills in the near future," the researchers say.

"Monkeys and apes and their specific communication systems result from other evolutionary roads than those of humans ... It is very unlikely that the natural selection for primate species will reproduce exactly the same phylogenetic path that gave linguistic skills to humans."

William Hopkins, a US psychology professor at Berry College and an expert on the evolution of brain development in primates, says:

"I agree with the findings and think this is a very good and interesting paper. In many ways the results are nearly identical to those we have previously found in chimpanzees."

He explains that both chimps and baboons seem to use right-hand gestures for communication. This suggests the brain is asymmetrical when it comes to language, meaning that the left hemisphere tends to dominate.

"It will be interesting to see whether the asymmetries in hand use seen in the baboon link at all to brain asymmetries as we have found in the chimpanzees," Hopkins adds.

Source: News in Science

World's Strangest Feet?

noreply@blogger.com (h.l.) — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 17:20:00 +0000

Shen Xiaojing, a 21 year old girl from Nong'an County in Changchun, a city in northeastern China, was born with very big feet. Although she herself is quite beautiful, her big feet have frightened away several prospective suitors.

Shen Xiaojing says that she was born with very big feet and they were twice as big as her contemporaries when she was 4 years old. She says that she has been unable to buy herself suitable shoes and always wears shoes made by her mother. When she was in primary school, her schoolmates laughed at her and called her "big feet Shen". At that time, her big feet surpassed in size any male adult's feet in her county.

Recently, she met with a local news reporter who interviewed her and measured her feet. Her right foot is 32 cm in length and 12 cm in width (The average foot length for a Chinese girl is between 22 and 24 cm). Her feet bear no similarity with her parents and both of them have average sized feet.

Her feet have kept growing over the past 20 years. Her family has spent much money in medical bills trying to ascertain the cause of her "strange condition," but have found no answers. "It was fortunate that my feet finally stopped growing last year," she told the reporter.

Although she is tall and slim with good looking features, she has frightened away all the prospective mates arranged by her parents. Last year, a friend introduced her to a man who was divorced and eight years older than Shen. At the beginning they talked with each other happily, however, he refused Shen after he saw her big feet. Traditionally, men like women with small feet in China.

Shen told the reporter, "My family is very poor and my brother is working in a restaurant to earn money to cover my hospital bills. He often calls me and encourages me to be strong and live happy. I would never disappoint him." In addition, she said in the interview, "I hope I can go to work in a big city like Beijing and Shanghai and see the outside world. I also hope I can earn a lot of money to help my parents live a better life."

Source: Jongonews

Statues show why we need hands

noreply@blogger.com (h.l.) — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 18:57:00 +0000

To celebrate

To push

To swing

To throw

To encourage

To connect

To show the way

To honor

To greet

To communicate

To sense

To hold on

To discover

To point out

To complain

To play

To protect ourselves

To make ourselves comfortable

To comfort others

Amazing hand art

noreply@blogger.com (h.l.) — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 18:22:00 +0000

These are by Italian Artist Daniele Guido.

What could it BEE ?

noreply@blogger.com (h.l.) — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 08:21:00 +0000

The BEE genome has just been unravelled, and it is hoped to unravel important questions about the intelligent behavior of bees. Bees have brains about 20,000 times less massive than the human brain, yet they are able to recognize faces from black-and-white pictures and even remember them days after training. In contrast, powerful computers still have great difficulty doing that.

So what could it BEE that makes them so good at the task? The clue must lie in the fact that faces, like hands, consist of certain unique patterns. Somehow, bees are able to identify these different patterns, and apparantly, it doesn't take many brain cells to do so.

Hand to replace mouse and keyboard

noreply@blogger.com (h.l.) — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 22:13:00 +0000

A fingertip device that recognises hand gestures and senses texture is being developed in the US.

The digitiser could one day input information without a keyboard; come in handy for gaming, where it could imitate squeezing a trigger; and be worn to paint on a screen by moving a finger through the air.

The 'Fingertip Digitizer', was developed by mechanical engineer Youngseok Kim and Associate Professor Thenkurussi Kesavadas, director of the University at Buffalo's Virtual Reality Laboratory.

They say it could be used for everything from inputting information into a computer or PDA to transferring the physical characteristics of an object to a computer for design purposes.

"With this device a computer, cell phone or computer game could read human intention more naturally," says Kesavadas.

"Eventually the Fingertip Digitizer may be used as a high-end substitute for a mouse, a keyboard or a joystick."

According to Kim and Kesavadas, other gesture-recognition devices available on the market can sense movement but not force.

And although there are several force-feedback, or haptic devices, none can measure details of dynamic fingertip activities, including acceleration and inertia.

"Our digitiser bridges the contact and non-contact input strategy," says Kim. "We keep track of everything happening on your fingertip."

After all, says Kesavadas, the fingertip is the most intuitive interface humans already posses. We use it to point, push buttons, touch objects and sense textures.

If the wearer touches or traces around an object, the motion data is combined with the force-feedback information to determine the object's shape. It will also know if the person is tapping on a table, scratching or snapping fingers, for example.

Read more on News in Science

Three armed baby born

noreply@blogger.com (h.l.) — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 13:22:00 +0000

A baby was born in China with an unusually well-developed third arm. In fact, doctors have difficulty deciding which of the two left arms is the best-developed. Incidentally, the baby was born on the 1st of April, but this is no joke.

"His Shanghai surgeons now must decide which arm to remove, and at this point, they aren't sure which arm will be the one to go."

"Neither of the boy's two left arms is fully functional and tests have so far been unable to determine which was more developed, said Dr. Chen Bochang, head of the orthopedics department at Shanghai Children's Medical Center.

UPDATE: The arm closest to the chest was found to be less developed and has successfully been removed.

"His case is quite peculiar. We have no record of any child with such a complete third arm," Chen said in a telephone interview.

The boy, identified only as "Jie-jie," also was born with just one kidney and may have problems that could lead to curvature of the spine, local media reports said. Jie-jie cried when either of his left arms was touched, but smiled and responded normally to other stimuli, the reports said.

Chen said doctors hoped to work out a plan for surgery, but the boy's small size made it impossible to perform certain tests that would help them prepare.

Media reports said other children have been reported born with additional arms and legs, but in those cases it was clear what limb was more developed. Chen's hospital is one of China's most experienced in dealing with unusual birth defects, including separating conjoined twins."

"While an extra limb is rare, children with multiple digits and even hands are more common, said Dr. Ann Van Heest, an upper extremity surgeon at Gillete Childrens Speciality Healthcare in Minnessota. She has never seen a case like the baby in China. Van Heest estimated that one out of 200,000 babies are born with two thumbs on one hand and one out of 2 million have doubling at the wrist, resulting in two hands."

From: usatoday.com , abcnews.go.com

Early humans had sex with chimps

noreply@blogger.com (h.l.) — Thu, 18 May 2006 01:23:00 +0000

"Our early ancestors interbred with chimpanzees after the two species drew apart millions of years ago, a new paper suggests.

The provocative idea is sketched by US genome experts, who have discovered that hominids and chimps diverged far more recently, and over a much longer timescale, than anyone had thought.

During this time, the authors theorise, the two primates were rather more than kissing cousins: they had sex, swapping genes before making a final separation."

"The ... analysis revealed big surprises, with major implications for human evolution," says Professor Eric Lander, director of the Broad Institute of Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and co-author of the paper in today's issue of the journal Nature.

Until now, the belief was that humans and chimpanzees shared a common ancestor but went their separate ways around 6.5-7.4 million years ago. "

Genetically, chimpanzees are 98.5% identical to humans.

Looking at DNA

"Exploiting the mountain of data that has come from the human and chimpanzee genome projects, the researchers compared the genetic codes of the two species as they are today.

They believe that the two species made their split no later than 6.3 million years ago and probably less than 5.4 million years ago. In other words, around 1 to 2 million years earlier than the Toumai estimate.

Moreover, speciation of chimp and hominid, the process by which they emerged as separate species, took an extraordinary long time: around four million years in all."

Sex chromososmes

"Previous studies suggest that sex chromosomes are among the most vulnerable of chromosomes when it comes to interbreeding. This is because co-mingling places its genes under swift selective pressure.

Thus something unusual must have happened on the way to speciation: an initial split between human and chimp, followed by interbreeding, whose results show up in progressive younger genes, and then a final separation."

From: News in Science

Men's fingers and faces reveal masculinity and attractiveness to women

noreply@blogger.com (h.l.) — Wed, 10 May 2006 15:05:00 +0000

Both our faces and our fingers have a lot to reveal about ourselves.

New research suggests that women can spot subtle signs of interest in children in a man's face, and accurately assess his level of the sex hormone testosterone.

"Women are fine tuned subconsciously to detect the qualities they are looking for in a man - just by looking at his face."

The study was carried out by researchers at the University of Chicago and the University of California, Santa Barbara

Researcher Dr Dario Maestripieri said:

"Our results also show that women value masculinity as a desirable trait for short-term relationships and interest in infants as a desirable trait for more stable long-term relationships."

Pictures of the volunteers were shown to 29 female undergraduates, who were asked to rate the men according to whether they thought they liked children, appeared masculine, physically attractive, or kind. The women were then asked to determine men's attractiveness as short-term romantic partners or as long-term partners for relationships such as marriage.

The men women chose as being most interested in children were the same men who had expressed the most interest in children in the photo test. The women also accurately rated the men with the highest testosterone levels as being the most masculine.

Dr James Roney, who also worked on the study, said: "The research suggests that men's interest in children may be a relatively underappreciated influence on men's long-term mate attractiveness."

Other research, by Dr. Roney and Dr. Maestripieri, suggests that the ratio of the lengths of the second and fourth fingers (2D:4D ratio) is also associated with men's attractiveness as well as with levels of behavioral displays during social interactions with potential mates.

"Our results confirm that male 2D:4D was significantly negatively correlated with women’s ratings of men’s physical attractiveness and levels of courtship-like behavior during a brief conversation. These findings provide novel evidence for the organizational effects of hormones on human male attractiveness and social behavior."

Link to full article.

Another news article on finding mr. Right

A study on the attractiveness of the average face

How to catch a liar? Bodylanguage myths exposed

noreply@blogger.com (h.l.) — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 17:34:00 +0000

We all think we know the signs of a liar - twitchy, nervous, blinking, doesn't want to look you straight in the eyes, strokes hair, touches nose.

Well, you're wrong, research shows. It's exactly the opposite. In a study of 130 volunteers, liars touched their noses and stroked their hair 15-20% less than truth tellers. Liars tend to be more still, with fewer movements.

So how do you catch a liar?

Well, look for signs that someone is suddenly more self conscious, more restrained, more concentrated. When the person does make hand gestures, it is to try to come across as honest. Look especially for the following signs:

- holding hands apart to indicate size
- touches the heart, a gesture of love and being genuine (see Bush picture)
(these gestures are used 25% more when lying, research has shown)

No doubt this data is culturally biased though.

Aside from the above hand gesture clues, you have to pay much closer attention. Liars usually don't give themselves away that easily. Look for changes in breathing, pupil dilation, skin flush, muscle tone changes, even pore size.

Also, look for exaggerated signs of honesty rather than stereotypical signs of lying. It's obvious in a way - liars make sure they avoid any body language that is commonly believed to indicate a liar, and try to imitate the body language of someone telling the truth. Acting - and therefore (indirectly) lying - is something we learn to do since we are very young. We learn to manipulate our body language to make it appropriate to the social situation.

So what about the looking to the right versus looking to the left tactic? (Looking right = invention, accessing part of the brain that constructs information, so would entail lying). Well, apparantly even that is a myth. We construct information even when telling the truth. But this could still be useful if we pay particular attention to what the person is saying - and if it involves constructing information.

So to catch a liar, you have to look closely for fake or exaggerated signs of honesty, listen carefully to see if body language contradicts what they're saying, and of course, ask lots of questions.

Family in Turkey walks on all fours

noreply@blogger.com (h.l.) — Fri, 10 Mar 2006 15:23:00 +0000

A family of ethnic Kurds has been found in Turkey that are quadrupedal - they walk on hands and feet. Is it a genetic defect? Or is it a missing link to our forebears, who started walking on two feet more than 2 million year ago?

Scientists are still speculating the shift to bipedalism - one theory is that it was merely to be able carry back a larger amount of food - enabling the upright bloke to feed a whole family back home rather than just oneself. Eventually the hands developed further, leading to the multi-functional hands we have today which can bounce basketballs up and down like no Gorilla can. [source: National Geographic]

Fun with anagrams

noreply@blogger.com (h.l.) — Wed, 01 Mar 2006 22:06:00 +0000

Some celebrity names have really amazing and interesting anagrams. Here's a selection of the best:

Britney Spears: best PR in years
George W Bush: He grew bogus / Bush ego grew / Where bugs go
George Bush: He bugs Gore / O, he buggers / Huger BS ego
President Bush of the USA: A fresh one, but he's stupid
Madonna Louise Ciccone: occasional nude income / one cool dance musician
Justin Timberlake: I'm a jerk, but listen
President Clinton of the USA: he finds interns to copulate
Harry Potter: try hero part
William Shakespeare: I’ll make a wise phrase / I am a weakish speller
Milosevic: Cos I'm evil
Adolf Hitler: Do real filth / Heil, old fart
Osama bin Laden: A bad man (no lies)

Most of these are from: http://www.innocentenglish.com/amazing-anagrams.html
and: http://www.fun-with-words.com/anag_names.html

In the theme of this blog, I tried finding some anagrams of my own:

Palmistry: Simply art
Dermatoglyphics: I'm Godly chapters / I'm God's chapterly

And how do the different palmistry systems fare?

Astrological palmistry: Rolls so pragmatically
Cheiro's palmistry: Is trashy compiler
Chinese palmistry: In mystical sphere / shapelier'n mystic
Chinese taoist chiromancy: Atheistic, concise harmony
Elemental palmistry: Sly, manlier template / Silly, temperamental
European palmistry: A monetary supplier / merry utopian pleas
Indian palmistry: I'm saintly 'n rapid / and mainly spirit
Oriental palmistry: Is really important
Traditional palmistry: Optimally sad irritant
Victorian palmistry: Inapt or rival mystic / Strip, I'm clairvoyant
English Victorian palmistry: Politely striving anarchism

The different palmistry systems were taken mostly from Christopher Jones' History of Handreading

Anagram genius was used to create these anagrams.

Chess and palmistry

noreply@blogger.com (h.l.) — Thu, 19 Jan 2006 16:13:00 +0000

Bobby Fischer, former world chess champion, is one of the greatest chess players of all time. Garry Kasparov wrote that of all world champions of chess, the skill gap between Fischer and his contemporaries was the largest in history. Fischer became the U.S. Champion at the tender age of 14 (the youngest ever, and with 0 losses), and went on to became the world's youngest ever Grandmaster (although this record no longer stands).

Well what does this have to do with palmistry?

Well, Fischer is actually a firm believer in palmistry. A quote from an interview: "Palmistry is a definite science. It's not just a bunch of nonsense like astrology." And about his own palms, he says they "show a flexible mind and a soul that has been callused by the hard knocks of life. Like I'm not as soft or as generous a person as I would be if the world hadn't changed me." [source: chessmaniac.com]

This provided some inspiration to look at the palm as if it were a chessboard, as Fischer might have done. The five different chesspieces (excluding the King) actually make interesting metaphors for the five fingers, similar to the two popular systems of palmistry - astrological palmistry (planet metaphors - jupiter, venus, mars, etc.) and 4 element handreading (air, water, earth, fire). So, without further delay, I hereby introduce: chess palmistry!
(due to the nature of chess it is kind of 'battle' oriented)

Thumb = the Queen. Like the thumb on the hand, the queen is easily the greatest force of power. It is also the most flexible piece, able to move in all directions. It is without doubt the captain of the ship, but still needs to work together with the other pieces in order to unleash its full power.

Index finger = the Bishop. Like the index finger, the bishop is the first to get out into the open and expose itself. For this reason, its usually the first to pose a threat.

Middle finger = the Castle (rook). Like the middle finger, the castle is the stabilizing core - strong and powerful, second only to the queen, but its influence is more often behind the scenes - until the final kill.

Ring finger = the Horse. Like the ring finger, the horse is the most unpredictable, creative, and distinct. While equal in strength to the bishop, it's tactics are more subtle and indirect.

Little finger = the Pawn. Like the little finger, the pawn is subtle and seemingly weak, but its influence should not be understimated. Often, the pawn becomes the most powerful of all, and it is through the hidden strength of the pawn that one tries to outwit the opponent.

Interesting hands

noreply@blogger.com (h.l.) — Fri, 18 Nov 2005 15:57:00 +0000

Hand skin's like elephant hide

How big is your hand?

Hello hello hello hello

Which one's the little finger?

Orangutan paints in free time

noreply@blogger.com (h.l.) — Wed, 09 Nov 2005 02:00:00 +0000

Nonja is an orangutan residing at Schoenbrunn Zoo in Vienna. She treads in the footsteps of chimp Conga, a succesful artist who sold paintings at a London auction for £14,400.

Congo, who was born in 1954, produced some 400 drawings and paintings between the ages of two and four.

The previous post in this blog mentioned that Neanderthals have hands as nimble as humans. Well the picture above shows that orangutans have hands nimble enough to handle a paintbrush! We humans aren't so special after all...(or are you an orangutan reading this?)

See also:

Surprising finger facts

noreply@blogger.com (h.l.) — Fri, 04 Nov 2005 12:53:00 +0000

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:

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

Hand gestures: some tricks from politicians

noreply@blogger.com (h.l.) — Sun, 23 Oct 2005 16:38:00 +0000

As much as 80% if communications is in the body language, and hands are one of the most important aspects to consider. Politicians are generally well trained in the art of hand gestures. Robert Phipps, a specialist who advises salespeople and politicians on effective communication, reveals some of their tricks:

Show your hands: Never place hands in pockets or behind your back, but always in full view. Otherwise the message is: I cannot be trusted.
Nothing crossed: Keep arms and legs uncrossed, possibly even leave your jacket unbuttoned. This means: I am open and honest with you.
Keep it low: Don't turn palms too far upwards or raise arms too high. This is a sign of surrender, and weakness. But palms slightly up and outwards is seen as open and friendly.
Palms down: The opposite of the above - this comes across as authoritarian and slightly threatening, so should be used with caution.
"I am in control gesture": This is done by extending the hands and then turning the palms downwards in a sort of patting motion. It's favoured by politicians, but has to be used with care. Better, according to Mr. Phipps, is first showing the hands are empty, and in a seamless movement cupping them slightly and moving them towards the body.

Indian boy has 25 fingers, toes

noreply@blogger.com (h.l.) — Tue, 18 Oct 2005 23:20:00 +0000

"Devender Harne, 10, was born with 25 fingers and toes -- six fingers on each hand, six toes on one foot and seven on the other." video link.

Devender says his extra fingers and toes are a help rather than a hindrance. "Unlike other instances where the extra physical feature is not fully-grown or is of no use, Devender's toes and fingers are active and normal in size."

The Guinness Book of World Records is investigating whether he has the most usable fingers and toes in the world.

Biometrics on the rise

noreply@blogger.com (h.l.) — Tue, 11 Oct 2005 17:26:00 +0000

From CNN.com: [oktober 11, '05] "They walk up to an ATM and press their thumbs on the screen. Out spits the cash. - New York? No. Chicago? No. The mountains and jungles of Colombia"

The use of Biometrics (human identification through physical or behavioral characteristics) is on the rise. Yet in some markets, such as the US, progress has been slow: the issue of privacy is one of the main reasons. South America has become a budding market for fingerprint technology, because people are already used to using fingerprints for identification.

Some of the latest technologies are very interesting, for example body odor or brainwave recognition, or analyzing your typing rhythm!

The use of biometrics would have been much more widespread, if it were not for some problems: none of the technologies are completely reliable, they tend to be quite costly, and some are inefficient. There are also many people who feel uneasy with the most commonly used biometrics technologies, such as fingerprint and eye recognition. Sticking your eye in front of your camera, putting your finger or hand on a surface touched by thousands of others, and having personal things about ourselves recorded - not everyone feels comfortable with that. For all these reasons, a lot of different biometrics technologies are still being developed and tried out.

Aside from fingerprint identification, other types of Biometrics are:

Facial recognition - based on facial features or pattern of flood vessels underneath the skin.
Hand geometry - based on the shape of the hand or the pattern of the veins
Eye recognition - based on either iris (which surrounds the pupil) or retina (pattern of blood vessels at the back of the eye).
Voice verification
Signature recognition
Keystroke dynamics - the rhythm with which one types is distinctive!
Nail recognition
DNA

Biometrics technologies still under development:

Mouse dynamics
Gait recognition - the way you walk
Scent and body odor
Automated Dental Identification System
Ear lobe measurements
Thermal emission
Brainwave reading
More

The fact that the fingerprint lines or dermatoglyphics can reveal information about ourselves, such as diseases, is dispelled as a myth by biometrics developers and researchers. True, the biometrics technologies probably do not record the relevant information from our hands. However, the idea that these lines reveal information about ourselves is of course not a myth at all: those who say so just have not been keeping up with the latest research. Or they are purposefully ignoring it in order to market their biometrics technologies.

Left-handers better at survival

noreply@blogger.com (h.l.) — Wed, 05 Oct 2005 13:04:00 +0000

...and he said, "Yes, God did it and he did it left handed."This confused me a bit, so I asked,"What makes you say God did this with his left hand?"

"Well," he said, "we learned at Sunday School last week that Jesus sits on God's right hand"

Fact1: One in every 10 people is left-handed. Males are almost one-and-a-half times more likely to be left-handed than females.

Fact2: Left-handers are more likely to have health problems, and score in more extreme ranges (high/low) in IQ tests compared to right-handers.

Fact 3: Left handers have an advantage in sports. A higher than average number of successful sportspeople are left-handers.

Debated: Some researchers say that left-handers are more likely to be creative.

Latest Fact: [Dec. '04] Researchers in France found that in violent cultures there is a higher incidence of left-handed people. They speculate that left handers are more likely to survive in a fight. Whatever the reason, left handers have shown to be better at survival. Otherwise, considering that they are more likely to have health problems, they would have become extinct. [source: New Scientist]

Some famous left handers: Homer and Bart Simpson, Matt Groening, Beethoven, DaVinci, Henry Ford, Einstein, Newton, Bill Gates, Alexander the Great, Charlie Chaplin, Morgan Freeman, Jay Leno, Oprah Winfrey, Robert Redford and Robert De Niro.

External links

Left handed men earn more, left handed women earn less, compared to right-handers.
Martijn van Mensvoort finds that left handed people tend to have longer fingers on their left hand compared to their right hand, and vice versa for right handed people.
Here's a list of list of famous left-handed people