Headlines on Human Hands

Fingerprints amplify and filter out vibrations

2009-02-02T04:44:00.000-08:00

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

2008-08-09T02:45:00.000-07:00

"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

2008-02-05T12:31:00.000-08:00

"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

2008-01-02T06:00:00.000-08:00

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

2007-11-06T00:55:00.000-08:00

"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

2007-08-28T03:02:00.000-07:00

"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?

2007-04-18T10:20:00.000-07:00

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

2007-02-11T10:57:00.000-08:00

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

2007-01-25T10:22:00.000-08:00

These are by Italian Artist Daniele Guido.

What could it BEE ?

2006-10-26T01:21:00.000-07:00

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

2006-08-28T15:13:00.000-07:00

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

2006-06-03T06:22:00.000-07:00

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

2006-05-17T18:23:00.000-07:00

"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

2006-05-10T08:05:00.000-07:00

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

2006-03-20T09:34:00.000-08:00

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

2006-03-10T07:23:00.000-08:00

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

2006-03-01T14:06:00.000-08:00

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

2006-01-19T08:13:00.001-08:00

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

2005-11-18T07:57:00.000-08:00

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

2005-11-08T18:00:00.000-08:00

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

2005-11-04T04:53:00.000-08:00

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

2005-10-23T09:38:00.000-07:00

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

2005-10-18T16:20:00.000-07:00

"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

2005-10-11T10:26:00.000-07:00

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

2005-10-05T06:04:00.000-07:00

...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

Human Hands emit Light!

2005-10-01T04:02:00.000-07:00

A study by Misuo Hiramatsu at Hamamatsu Photonics in Japan discovered that human hands emit light all the time, in particular the fingernails. Other parts of the body that emit light are the forehead and bottoms of our feet.

"The detector found that fingernails release 60 photons, fingers release 40 and the palms are the dimmest of all, with 20 photons measured."

Fritz-Albert Popp, a leading world expert on biologically related photons, believes that the light pulses out with basic rhythms, but become irregular in unhealthy people. In the future, the light from our hands and rest of our body may be used to diagnose medical problems.

Do you have a Passion Line?

2005-09-28T05:04:00.000-07:00

Do you think you are kinky? Have a look and see if you have a passion line on one or both of your hands (see picture left).

This has got to be one of the most interesting lines on the hand. The passion line is a line that goes from between the ring and little finger towards what is known by handreaders as the 'heart line'. The heart line is one of the three strongest lines on the palm. It crosses the palm horizontally, starting from the little finger side and ending somewhere below the middle and index finger (sometimes swooping upwards to the index finger). Palm lines in the area above the heart line, such as the passion line, tend to be found on people who are very sensual and enjoy flights of fantasy.

It is not uncommon to see a semi-circle type of formation, starting between the ring and little finger and ending between the index and middle finger. This is known as the 'girle of venus', and used to be known as the 'sex drugs and rock'n roll' line in traditional palmistry. It is said to be found on thrill seekers.

The passion line is more of a straight, rather than curved, line, plunging directly towards the heartline and sometimes passing through it. Its significance was discovered by Johnny Fincham. Not everyone has this marking, and a clear, deep line, unwavering and unbroken line is quite uncommon. It is said to be a sign of those who are kinky and like to explore their sexuality.

To get to know about this line, and other insights into the hand, get Johnny Fincham's book The Spellbinding Power of Palmistry.

Do you have unusual fingerprints?

2005-09-20T15:14:00.000-07:00

Below are the three basic pattern types. The loop is the most common fingerprint pattern all over the world.

To identify the three patterns, note the 'delta', the point where lines from three directions come together. The whorl has two deltas, the loop has one (see bottom-left), and the arch has no delta at all.

Which fingerprints are most rare?

Below are some pictures of less common fingerprints patterns.
Send me a picture/scan of your palm or fingerprint if you have trouble identifying it (frvc [at] dse [dot] nl).

Double Loop

Peacock's eye

Tented Arch

To see if you have an unusual or rare fingerprint, check which finger it is found on. For example, a radial loop is common on the index finger, but extremely rare on the little finger.

Uncommon fingerprint: less than 1 in 20 people have such a fingerprint.
Rare fingerprint: less than 1 in 100 people have such a fingerprint.
Extremely rare fingerprint: less than 1 in 1000 people have such a fingerprint.

In order from most common to most rare:

Ulnar loop = a loop that comes from the pinky side of the hand
- So common, it is quite rare NOT to have one!
Whorl = a spiral pattern
- Very common, especially on the thumb, index and ring fingers
Radial loop = a loop that comes from the thumb side of the hand
- Commonly found on index finger, uncommon on middle finger, rare on other fingers
=====================
UNCOMMON FINGERPRINTS:
=====================
Arch = most simple fingerprint, no loop patterns
- Uncommon pattern on: all fingers, rare on little finger
Double loop = two loops going in two directions, but is actually a type of whorl
- Uncommon pattern on: all fingers except thumb, rare on ring and little fingers
Peacock's eye = a tiny whorl inside a loop
- Uncommon pattern on: all fingers, most common on ring finger, rare on thumb.
===============
RARE FINGERPRINTS:
===============
Tented arch = arch pattern but horizontal ridges rising up high in the middle, creating a tent-like pattern. Note: the tented arch is often confused with a loop that looks like a tented arch. Look for any signs of a loop to check if it is a 'real' tented arch.
- Rare on all fingers, extremely rare on thumb and little finger
Accidental = anything else, such as horizontal rather than vertical loops
- Rare on index finger, extremely rare on all other fingers

Source used: Fingerprints, palms and soles, Cummins, H., 1943

Character traits

Handreaders have associated fingerprints with certain character traits.

Loops*: flexible, adaptable, easy going, highly receptive, impressionable, unfocussed, team players.
Arches: down to earth, pragmatic, responsible, reserved, consistent.
Tented arches: hyperactive, impulsive, intense, fiery.
Whorls*: independent, inflexible, individualistic, highly focussed.
Double loop (a.k.a. composite): indecisive, uncertain, diplomatic. Some double loops look more like whorls, others are more clearly two intertwined loops. Depending on which one it is, see also the associated loop or whorl characteristics.
Peacock's eye (a.k.a. central pocket loop): perfectionistic, good eye for detail. It is more of a whorl than a loop, so see also whorl characteristics.

*Note that loops and whorls are quite common - so it would take about 4+ whorls to make you a 'whorly' person and 7+ loops to make you a 'loopy' person.

Handreaders also give specific meaning to the fingers. To interpret the meaning, you need to combine all the characteristics, and this takes experience (say, getting people's feedback from reading at least 1000 hands). But it can be fun linking the fingerprints characteristics to the individual fingers:

Thumb: Willpower/control
Index: Public image, self expression
Middle finger: Values, morals
Ring finger: Aesthetics, creativity
Pinky: Communication

The meaning also depends on the hand you look at - this is if you have different fingerprints on your left hand compared to your right hand:

Dominant hand (right if right handed): Public self
Passive hand: Private self

Fingerprints on your palm?

Do you have any fingerprints on your palm? Is it a loop inbetween two fingers? No? Congratulations, whatever it is automatically qualitifies as an uncommon palm pattern! One or more loops are usually found on the area of the palm between the fingers. The one between the ring finger and pinky is commonly called the 'humor loop', and between the ring and middle fingers is called the 'loop of seriousness' (draw your own conclusion about this one...but it refers to 'type' of humor rather than humor itself). A loop between the index and middle fingers is quite rare, and is a sign of royal lineage in Indian traditional palmistry. Some people also have loops or arches elsewhere, most commonly in the area around the base of the thumb. It is also quite common to have a loop on the side of the palm opposite the thumb, about halfway up, which is called a memory loop. A whorl print is very rare anywhere on the palm.

Fingerprints around the world

In some human populations whorls are more common, such as among aboriginal Australians, Eskimos and in some parts of Asia. Europeans tend to have more loops. Arches are more common among the Bushmen, Efe pygmies and oddly enough, the Dutch. Nevertheless, the order of commonness: loop -> whorl -> arch, is the same everywhere.

Can fingerprints be forged?

Apparently it is not too difficult to fool a fingerprint security system. Check out this demonstration from MythBusters:

Can fingerprints be forged? - EduTube

Recommended links

Let us know at the palmistry club if you have any unusual (finger)prints, and what you think it could mean! (and out of interest - your family origins) . Or post your comment here.
For more information, Christopher Jones provides the most detailed analysis of fingerprints on the web. And see also Ed Campbell's detailed historical overview of fingerprints, palmar dermatoglyphics and character identity.
Did you know that Malcolm X had extremely rare fingerprint patterns? Have a look and also check out Andres Washington's analysis of the rarity of these prints.

Most popular body parts in the English language

2005-09-19T07:43:00.000-07:00

This is an excellent word count tool that presents "86,800 most frequently used English words, ranked in order of commonness".

Also interesting is query count, the most common queries in wordcount. The results are not exactly surprising (see below).

Some of the results:

Most talked about body parts		We are most curious about:
Body Head: 222 Hand: 238 Face: 246 Eyes: 291 Hair: 682 Feet: 698 Fingers: 1769 Lips: 2026 Nose: 2335 Ears: 3168 Palm: 5937 Thumb: 6487 Toes: 6895 Fingerprints: 18785 Pinky: 40363	Senses See: 85 Feel: 329 Hear: 704 Touch: 1539 Taste: 2429 Smell: 2633	Ass: 9 T*ts: 75 Hair: 495 Hand: 545 Finger: 699 Face: 749 Lips: 2543 Thumb: 5024

Football players chop fingers to improve game

2005-09-16T07:28:00.000-07:00

First Daniel Chick had a ring finger amputated (see pic) and bone removed in his shoulder for his football career, and now another Australian football player just had his finger amputated. All for the love of the game. Brett Backwell also had his left ring finger removed because of pain and lack of movement from an earlier injury, which affected his ability to handle the ball.

"It's not something that's been done lightly and to chop a finger off, it's a bit drastic. But I love my footy and love playing sport and if that's going to help me to succeed at this level then it's something you've just got to do."

Hand sculptures and art

2005-09-15T08:25:00.000-07:00

For more artworks and full-sized foto's check out Martijn's website.

Punta del Este (Uruguay)

Escher: Drawing hands	La Mano del Desierto, Chili
The Thumb, Shanghai	The Thumb, Paris

Human finger munchers - jailed

2005-09-10T05:48:00.000-07:00

A couple is charged for putting a human finger in a Wendy's burger and filing a law-suit against Wendy's. "Ms Ayala's claim is said to have cost the third-largest US burger chain $2.5m (£1.3m) in lost sales." Wendy's offered a $100,000 reward for information on whose that was.

The couple pleaded guilty and the finger owner, a construction worker, has been found. The finger, lost in an industrial accident, was sold for only $100.

First ever artificial opposable thumb

2005-09-08T07:25:00.000-07:00

Those non-moving or single-motor grip prosthetic hands should soon be replaced by a an advanced robot hand.

Lots of people lose their hand every year, such as through motorbike or industrial accidents.

A team at the University of Southampton designed a hand with seperate motors for each finger, and it can be connected to muscles in the arm. The thumb can move in a special way and is flexible and opposable like a human thumb.

The next step is to replicate the human sense of touch.

No hands? No problem

2005-09-07T04:45:00.000-07:00

Watch this amazing mom with no arms do everything with her feet - taking care of her baby, going to the movies, driving a car and even typing on a keyboard.

Forget palmistry, read breasts

2005-09-06T14:46:00.000-07:00

After palmistry, phrenology (reading bumps on the head), iridology (iris reading), feet and toe reading, an Italian researcher has now invented the fascinating art of:

BREAST READING

Girls may have experienced this before: a guy coming up to them in a bar, grabbing their hands, and after a quick examination with a caressing finger, get flirtuous remarks thrown at them with here and there references to 'heart line' and 'life line' and so on.

Now imagine an Italian guy coming up to you, examining your breasts, and remarking how they resemble a certain fruit. According to the sexologist, women with lemon breasts are lively and can laugh at themselves. Grapefruit breasts are not a good sign for sex - women with these prefer tenderness. Large and well-rounded breasts are attached to women who like eating and want to be spoiled and admired.

Well, whatever works for you...

Sign language: look who's talking

2005-08-25T16:02:00.000-07:00

Have you ever listened to a baby trying to make conversation with you? The baby is making a genuine attempt, but just isn't able to speak yet.

Sign language solves that problem. Babies as young as 6 months old can communicate with their hands. The average age when babies start saying meaningful words is around 1 year old. With hand signs they can begin communicating a few months earlier.

Teaching babies to sign can improve their language, vocabulary and reading skills. In addition, eight year olds who had learned sign language as babies scored higher on IQ tests. It can also save a lot of frustrations if babies can sign what they want.

Baby signing is becoming more and more popular, with signing classes for parents and babies popping up everywhere. A signing baby doesn't raise as many eyebrows as it did a few years ago. The movie Meet the Fockers, in which the baby signs with Robert de Niro, helped popularize the phenomenon.

Koko signing "koko"
Maybe signing babies is not such a big surprise if you know of Koko, a gorilla who uses over a thousands words of ASL (American Sign Language). With us humans evolving from apes, some scientists believe that we first communicated through sign and developed speech later. What all this definitely shows is the strong brain-hand connection. It's almost as if we have brains inside our hands.

Even if you never learned sign language, you probably still use hand gestures all the time. There's even a guide to Italian hand gestures (handy for those having trouble pronouncing the words). Vivid gestures help get the message across. But did you know that gestures also help us speak? If you're attempting to speak a foreign language, use your hands more. Your hands might be better at foreign languages than you'd think.

Further reading:

Article on baby signs fom Psychology Today

Research on baby signing

koko.org

Are you masculine or feminine?

2005-08-24T09:04:00.000-07:00

Besides genitalia, relative finger length is the only physical trait at birth that's different in males and females. While still in the womb, the growth of our finger digits is affected by the sex hormones testosterone and estrogen. These hormones also have an effect on our brains.

So how to check? Males tend to have a ring finger that is longer than their index finger (average: 1 to 0.96 ratio), while females typically have index and ring fingers of the same length.

John Manning, a biologist who first identified the significance of 'finger digit ratios', says that "females with masculine digit ratios have more masculine behaviors...males with a typically female ratio exhibit more typically feminine behaviors." Boys with female-type finger lengths tend to be more emotional and sensitive. Girls with the male-type finger lengths tend to be more hyperactive and more predisposed to autism. Lesbians are also more likely to have this finger ratio. Some other characteristics possibly associated with these ratios are musical and sports aptitude; on the negative side, risk of early heart disease and breast cancer.

Read the Psychology Today article

A glimpse of Manning's book