Monday, January 4, 2010

How Fingerprints Work

Living on the wrong side of the law? If so, you’ll want to spend some time thinking about fingerprints, the unique pattern of whorled ridges that adorns every human’s fingertips. Your fingerprints were formed, more or less at random, while you were still in your mother’s womb. To biologists, fingerprints are known as friction ridges, and they’re thought to improve our sense of touch. They might also give you a better grip on small, wet objects. And thanks to your sebaceous glands and your sweat glands, your fingerprints leave wet, oily tracks wherever they’ve been, which is of great interest to law-enforcement officers. Incidentally, there’s no shortage of exquisitely painful home-cooked approaches to alter or remove your friction ridges, including sandpaper, Super Glue, needles, and liquid nitrogen. Unsurprisingly, you can find all of these distinctly dimwitted ideas on the Internet. But before you try them out, consider investing in a pair of latex gloves instead. After all, when police interview suspects, they pay particular attention to the fellow with no fingerprints.


Source of Information : Oreilly - Your Body Missing Manual

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