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Review
In daily life, we often hear various theories about fingerprints, trying to link the "bucket" and "dustpan" on the finger to personal wealth and destiny, but do these claims stand up to the heel of science?
The latest research from the Chinese Academy of Sciences may unveil the mystery behind fingerprints and lead us into an uncharted territory – exploring the mysteries of fingerprint formation.
What are buckets and dustpans?
In fingerprinting, buckets and dustpans represent two different patterns on the fingers. A bucket refers to a swirl in the shape of a circle or oval in a fingerprint, while a dustpan refers to an arc or straight line in the form of stripes.
Some traditional beliefs believe that through the number and distribution of buckets and dustpans, a person can become an official and make a fortune or can only do nothing, and some say that it is also related to people's temperament, all kinds of theories reflect people's curiosity about themselves and others, as well as expectations and hopes for the future.
Buckets and dustpans are only biological features on the fingers, and their formation is mainly influenced by genes and has nothing to do with personal fate. Various folklore are produced in a specific cultural context, and while interesting, there is no scientific basis for it.
The fate of human beings is determined by their own efforts and choices, and should not be bound and influenced by such nonsense. If you look at buckets and dustpans from a scientific perspective, you will understand that they are only part of human biology and cannot predict or determine the future.
The mystery of fingerprints
In fact, the two fingerprints of "bucket" and "dustpan" have only one real effect: to increase the friction of human fingers, which helps to better grasp objects. This biological trait is the result of evolution, as our ancestors used their fingers to gather food, make tools, and even climb trees.
If there are no fingerprints on the fingers, the surface will be smooth and easy to slip, which is a detriment for survival and reproduction. Therefore, fingerprinting is an intelligent adaptation to the environment and an optimization of life.
In addition to increasing friction, fingerprints also play another important role, which is to improve the sensitivity of the sense of touch. Fingerprints are home to many nerve endings that transmit subtle information about the surface of an object to the brain, allowing us to distinguish between different materials, perceive different temperatures, and even recognize different handwriting.
Therefore, fingerprints are also a tool for obtaining information, which plays an important role in our perception of the world.
The formation of fingerprints is an extremely complex process, which is determined by our genetic information and sometimes affected by external factors. When we were still in our mother's womb, fingerprints were already starting to take shape.
Scientists generally agree that fingerprints begin to form around the 10th week of gestation, but the exact process of formation has not yet been fully confirmed.
The most widely accepted theory is that fingerprints form in the middle layer of skin known as the basal lamina, which lies between the inner layer (dermis) and the outer layer (epidermis). The basal lamina grows at a faster rate, resulting in pressure on the adjacent cortex.
This pressure causes the basal layer to bend, causing the epidermis to form folds inside the dermis – revealing the complex fingerprint lines we see on the skin's surface.
Since this process of deformation is written in our genetic information, and the position is between the dermis and the epidermis, as long as the dermis is not damaged, our fingerprints remain basically unchanged from birth to old age.
Although the spacing between the lines may change as you grow and develop, the pattern and details of fingerprints remain largely unchanged.
Although fingerprints have their own unique characteristics, they can be classified as bucket-shaped, kei-shaped, and arc-shaped. The formation mechanism of these fingerprints is related to the curvature of the basal lamina. The bucket pattern is formed by the inward bending of the basal layer, the kei pattern is curved outward, and the arc pattern is formed parallel to the epidermis.
Why does the basal layer bend in different directions? This is related to the Turing reaction diffusion system theory proposed by a mathematician in the 50s of the last century, which is used to explain the role of chemical signals during development, including the interaction of molecules that promote growth and molecules that inhibit growth to form an orderly developmental pattern.
In fingerprinting, the cells in the basal lamina are such a complex system that are affected by different chemical signals, resulting in different bending directions.
These chemical signals may stem from genetic or environmental factors, such as the location of the embryo inside the mother's body, the size and temperature of the embryo, etc. These factors influence the growth rate and direction of the basal lamina, which in turn shapes the shape and distribution of fingerprints. Thus, fingerprinting is the result of both genetic and environmental influences.
Each person's fingerprint is as unique as each person's life story. This phenomenon of self-organization demonstrates the wonder of the interaction of complex factors in the development of life.
The formation of buckets and dustpans went through a similar process, but they involved a more complex factor, namely the destruction of symmetry. Symmetry refers to the property of an object or system that remains unchanged under a certain transformation, such as a circle that remains unchanged when it rotates, which is rotational symmetry.
In the formation of the fingerprint, if the curvature of the basal layer is perfectly symmetrical, the fingerprint will take on a perfectly circular shape, that is, a bucket pattern.
However, this is uncommon because the bending of the basal layer is affected by many asymmetrical factors, such as the edges, thickness, and elasticity of the basal layer. These factors can cause perturbations in the basal layer that disrupt symmetry and cause fingerprints to take on different shapes, such as kei and arc.
epilogue
Just as each person's fingerprint is unique, everyone's life story is unique and complex. The current research may only reveal the tip of the iceberg of fingerprint formation, and the deeper mystery behind the biological feature of fingerprints may still need to be further explored and discovered.
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