Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - Fingerprints (Encore)

Episode Date: August 9, 2024

Located on the tips of our fingers are features known as friction ridges. We evolved them to get a better grip on objects.  It just so happens that those friction ridges are unique to every person.  That allows us to use friction ridges as unique identifiers and for authorities to use them to catch criminals, and in some ways, we have been doing so for centuries.  Learn more about fingerprints and fingerprinting on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.  Sponsors Sign up for ButcherBox today by going to Butcherbox.com/daily and use code daily at checkout to get $30 off your first box! Subscribe to the podcast!  https://link.chtbl.com/EverythingEverywhere?sid=ShowNotes -------------------------------- Executive Producer: Charles Daniel Associate Producers: Ben Long & Cameron Kieffer   Become a supporter on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/everythingeverywhere Update your podcast app at newpodcastapps.com Discord Server: https://discord.gg/UkRUJFh Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everythingeverywhere/ Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/everythingeverywheredaily Twitter: https://twitter.com/everywheretrip Website: https://everything-everywhere.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The following is an encore presentation of Everything Everywhere Daily. Located on the tips of our fingers are features known as friction ridges. We evolve them to get a better grip on objects. And it just so happens that those friction ridges are unique to every person. That allows us to use friction ridges as unique identifiers and for authorities to use them to catch criminals. And in some ways, we've been using these for centuries. Learn more about fingerprints and fingerprinting on this episode of Everything Everything Everything Where Daily.

What if your perceptions about the past were wrong? ThruLine is a podcast that takes you back in time to uncover the parts of the story that may have gone unnoticed. It effectively turned day into night. And how it shaped the world now. Time travel with us every week on the ThruLine podcast from NPR. Fingerprints are something that have been with us long before we ever became human. While we don't have fossilized fingerprints from early humans, we do know that closely related animals such as gorillas and chimpanzees also have fingerprints.

Fingerprints, or friction ridges, are believed to have evolved for several reasons. The biggest reason is that increasing the surface area on our fingers, even ever so slightly, makes it easier to grip and hold objects. Additionally, the ridges on our fingertips allow us to detect more subtle textures and variations in the surfaces we're touching, providing us with better tantal. tactile sensitivity. Fingerprints begin to form as early as the 15th week of pregnancy and remain with us until we die. While fingerprints are unique, they're not totally random. There are genetic trends that can make fingerprints for related people somewhat similar. Identical twins will not have identical

fingerprints, but they will often have similar fingerprints. Fraternal twins may have fingerprints that are not quite as similar as identical twins. The reason why fingerprints are unique is that they aren't determined solely by genetics. It seems that even small environmental factors in the womb, such as pressure and the position of the fetus, can cause fingerprints to develop differently. The knowledge that fingerprints were unique

goes back at least 2,000 years. We know that impressions of thumbs were used on clay tablets as identification in ancient Babylon as early as 200 BC. Unintended fingerprint evidence has been found in clay pottery and paintings in the Indus Valley, Greece, and ancient Egypt. In fact, some evidence of fingerprints have been found in cave paintings that date back 10 to 15,000 years. When paper developed in ancient China, an entire handprint would sometimes be used to authenticate documents. While it didn't have the same sophistication of modern techniques, the Babylonian King Hamarabi took the imprints of criminals in the 18th century BC.

when possible hand and footprints were often taken from crime scenes during the Chin dynasty in China. We have documentation from the Chinese historian Kiyakung Yan in 650 that fingerprints could be used as identification. The 13th century Islamic scholar Rashid al-Din Hamandani commented on the Chinese practice of using fingerprints by noting that, quote, experience shows that no two individuals have fingers exactly alike. So the takeaway from all of this is that the use of fingerprint, goes back much earlier than most people realize. However, these first uses of fingerprints were pretty crude. A more systematic understanding of fingerprints began in the 17th century in Europe.

They had the benefit of using modern inventions such as magnifying glasses to get a closer look at fingerprints. In 1686, the Italian anatomist Marcello Malpigchi was the first to identify the major components of fingerprints, including loops and ridges. In 1788, the German anatomist Johann Christiast, off Andreas Meyer, rediscovered what the Chinese new centuries before, that fingerprints were unique. The modern use of fingerprints, however, can be said to date back to the 1880s. It started in 1880 when a Scottish doctor working in Tokyo by the name of Henry Falds published a paper

on identifying people with fingerprints and a possible way to record them using printer ink. Falds actually managed to solve a crime in his hospital by using fingerprints. He also conducted an experiment where he filed off his fingerprints to see if they would grow back. They did. In 1886, he returned to Britain and offered its system to the Metropolitan Police Department who declined the offer. However, in 1892, Francis Galton, a guy who had a lot of other crazy ideas about things that were later debunked, published his book, Fingerprints. In it, he estimated the odds of two fingerprints matching were one in 64 billion. That same year in our first year in Argentina, a woman by the name of Francesca Rojas was found beaten in her home, and her two sons were

murdered. She accused her neighbor, but a bloody thumbprint left at the murder scene pointed to her, and she later confessed. This was the first murder case ever solved with the use of fingerprints. Galton's book got the attention of Sir Edward Henry, who was the chief of police in Bengal, India. They had a problem with tracking criminals through the legal system. The problem was, even if you use fingerprints to identify criminals, how could you possibly track and organize all of that information? In 1896, Henry, or perhaps his Indian assistance, Azizuul Haak and Hemshandra Bose, developed a system for classifying fingerprints such that it would create 1,024 groups that fingerprints would fall under. The classification system was adopted in India in 1897, and later

by Scotland Yard in 1900. This system was mostly used for identifying criminals who had already been through the system and had been fingerprinted. There were only rare cases such as the one in Argentina, where an identifiable fingerprint would be left in some substance like blood. Another big advance was developed by the French scientist Paul Jean Cullier, who developed a method of lifting fingerprints off surfaces like glass using iodine fuming. The use of fingerprints spread rapidly in the early 20th century as it provided an easy way to track criminals and to link suspects to the scene of a crime if they left fingerprints. And here is why I should address why it is our fingerprints leave imprints on some objects like metal or glass. Even though it doesn't seem like it,

your fingers are covered in pores that excrete oil. In particular, these oils accumulate on the ridges of your fingerprints. When you touch something, your finger acts like a rubber stamp, leaving an outline of your fingerprints in oil. As fingerprinting became popular all over the world with law enforcement during the 20th century, there developed a problem. By the end of the century, there were now tens of millions of fingerprints that had been collected. Even with a good classification system, the problem of matching a print found at a crime scene with someone who had already been fingerprinted was a daunting task. To that end in 1999, the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation launched the integrated automated fingerprint identification system, or IAFIS.

This was a giant database of all their fingerprints which local law enforcement agencies could search. A criminal search on a fingerprint can be conducted in less than two hours, and a civil search can be conducted in about 24 hours. While fingerprints have been a boon to law enforcement, they are not always perfect. In 2004, there was a deadly terrorist attack on a commuter train in Madrid. A partial set of prints found at the crime scene were run through the fingerprint database, and they found a match. lawyer and a Muslim convert named Brandon Mayfield from Portland, Oregon. Mayfield was arrested

and held for two weeks. The fingerprints that they matched were taken from when he was in the army. The problem was, he was nowhere near Madrid and could easily prove it. He didn't even have a valid passport and hadn't left the country in over a decade. While solving crimes has been one of the biggest uses of fingerprinting over the last century, it hasn't been the only one. Fingerprints are unique identifiers, and there are many cases where you need to prove your identity. However, the system of having to dab your fingers in ink and storing them on cards, or even a computer database, still wasn't convenient. This problem was solved with the creation of fingerprint scanners. There's a good chance that many of you have used a fingerprint scanner. They have been integrated into many models of

smartphones, and they're often used by immigration police when entering a country. There are several different types of fingerprint scanners that use different technologies to do the same thing. The first type is an optical scanner. This just takes an image of your fingerprint to compare it to what's already been saved. The next type is a capacitive or Seymus scanner. This type has electrical capacitors on the surface that you put your fingers on, and they then take an image of your fingerprint using electricity. And this type is usually the most accurate scanner. Another type of scanner is an ultrasonic scanner. This uses high-pitched sound to get a 3D map of the ridges on your finger. And the final type is a thermal scanner. This uses the temperature differential between the

ridges and valleys on your fingerprints. And this is the least popular type of scanner. Almost all smartphones use a capacitive touchscreen to read fingerprints. Despite fingerprints being unique, the capacitive fingerprint readers on smartphones aren't as great as you might think. There have been many cases of people whose relatives were able to understand. unlock each other's phones using fingerprints because they were similar. Likewise, hacking groups have been able to bypass fingerprint scanners over 80% of the time using off-the-shelf tools. While these systems aren't perfect, from a security standpoint, they're better than nothing. They work especially well when used in tandem with other methods of security. I have a fingerprint

scanner on the keyboard I use on my desktop computer. It allows me to quickly and easily bypass having to use my password every single time. I'll close by making my password. I'll close bying note of a very rare condition called adermatoglyphia. Adermatoglyphia is a genetic condition that results in people completely lacking fingerprints. Their fingers are totally smooth. As it is a hereditary condition, it often tends to affect entire families. There are only six families worldwide who have been diagnosed with adermatoglyphia.

There are no other known conditions associated with the anomaly, so if you had to pick a genetic condition to have, this would probably be the one. It's been dubbed immigration delay disease because it usually causes long delays at airport immigration controls. Fingerprints have been used for centuries and will almost certainly continue to be used for centuries to come. It isn't just a unique identifier for each of us, but an identifier that can be left behind at crime scenes. The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Benji Long and Cameron Kiever. I want to give a big shout out to everyone who supports the show over on Patreon.

including the show's producers. Your support helps me put out a show every single day. And also, Patreon is currently the only place where Everything Everywhere Daily merchandise is available to the top tier of supporters. If you'd like to talk to other listeners of the show and members of the Completionist Club, you can join the Everything Everywhere Daily Facebook group

or Discord server. Links to everything are in the show notes.