Charles Darwin – ‘the Godfather of evolution’ – had the long pointer finger!

CHARLES DARWIN HAD THE LONG FOREFINGER! Charles Darwin’s voyage of the HMS Beagle (1831-1836) is known as the most important journey around the world ever made. For, during that the famous trip Darwin gained knowledge and insights that has changed the perception of human kind about the image of life on Earth dramatically. On September 1, 2009 the “clipper Stad Amsterdam” left on a trip around the world, in the wake of Charles Darwin (1809-1882). During the 2009 journey researchers investigate many aspects of Darwin’s work and life. Evolutionary psychology professor Bram Buunk – who is involved in finger length research – studied Darwin’s finger length! Jealousy in Montevideo: Men and women have different reasons for jealousy, Buunk discovered in the seventies. Men are jealous because they do not want their female fertilized by another man – a genetic cuckoo – and for the dissemination of its genes on to run. Women are jealous because they do not want their husband’s attention spread over several partners, but exclusively focuses on her and her children. Bram Buunk and his colleagues have discovered a link between the susceptibility to become jealousy, and the ratio of the length of index fingers and ring fingers. The story is now more or less known: if the index finger (a.k.a. the ‘pointer finger’ or ‘forefinger’) is relatively longer than the ring finger, the individual, regardless of sexe, has sort of a ‘female character’. Conversely, human males usually have a relatively long ring finger, usually the ring finger is longer than the index finger (while in human females the both fingers often have the same length). The link could be traced back to an evolutionary coincidence. For, the same chemical cocktail during the embryonic development of the brains in the direction of the correct gender sends, plays a role in cutting the fingers of the hand embryonic plate. Buunk also studied Darwin’s fingers: “During a conversation about Buunk’s finger research, we realized that we could apply this theory to Darwin, and sure enough, a few photos, including the one in which he poses with his son William, you can see his hand with a relatively very long forefinger.” [see: the photos above]. “Another image that was found by a cameraman on the internet, confirms the idea that Charles Darwin had the long forefinger – which makes his a ‘female-typical man’.” “The conclusion is obvious: Charles Darwin was a man with a strong feminine disposition! That may explain a lot: his gentleness, his highly developed social and diplomatic skills, his easy survival during the cooperation with Fitzroy – who was known to be a ‘difficult’ man (likely, a man with a long ring finger), his care for his family, and his concern for the consequences of the publication of his ‘theory of evolution’ on society in general and the welfare of his family in particular.” SUGGESTION FOR FURTHER READING: • Beagle 2009 report: Charles Darwin had the long pointer finger! • Five things that your 5 fingers can tell you! • Evolutionary hand analysis! • A secret your finger length reveals! • How to measure the 2D:4D digit ratio!

BIONIC HANDS – part 1: From Star Wars to world’s best inventions: the prosthetic hand!

BIONIC HANDS – From Luke Skywalker (Star Wars) to the first prosthetic hand! What appeared to be science fiction in 1980 when Luke Skywalker’s “prosthetic hand” was introduced in Star Wars episode V (‘The Empire strikes Back’), has in the 21th century definitely become reality. For, in 2008 Time Magazine included the ‘bionic hand’ in the list of best inventions! The article presents an overview of the milestones in the developments of various ‘bionic hands’ - what could become the ‘NEXT NATURE’ version of the human hand! A review of how disabled people in time were able to become a ‘bionic man’ or ‘bionic woman’! NOTICE: The concept ‘Next Nature‘ – introduced by sciene philosopher Koert van Mensvoort – is described as follows: “Next nature is the nature caused by human culture. That may sound like a contradiction, but really, it isn’t. Our technological world has become so intricate and uncontrollable that it has become a nature of its own. This means we have to re-investigate our notion of nature.” SUGGESTION FOR FURTHER READING: • BIONIC HANDS: From Luke Skywalker to Time’s 2008 best inventions! • A new milestone for the bionic hand (2007) • Evolution of the 5 fingers in the human hand! • The man who grew a finger! • More ‘evolutionary’ hand reports!

HANDS – Five major differences between the primate hand and the human hand!

Primate hands: the hand of a macaque!

‘Whorls’ are a common features in the hands of many primate species! What are the major differences between the hands of primate species and the human? • 1 – Primates usually have a shorter thumb than humans – the thumb of the macaque (see photo on the left) does not rearch out behond the distal border of the handpalm. • 2 – Primates usually have a lower ‘2D:4D digit ratio’ than humans – the hand of the macaque is featured with a much longer ring finger (digit 4) than the pointer finger (digit 2).

• 3 – Primates usually have more fingerprint- and palmar whorls than humans – the hand of the macaque is featured with 5 palmar whorls. • 4 – Primates always have a lower ‘ridge density’ than humans. • 5 – Primates usually have (various) palmar transversal creases, a.k.a. ’simian lines’ – the hand of the macaque has one ’simian line’. SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING: • The Monkey Palmist! • Fingerprints, toeprints, and … tailprints? • Understanding our past: the human hand vs. the primate hand! • Hands in the perspective of evolution! • Weird stories about hands & evolution! PHOTO: Impression from the back of the hand of a macaque:

PRIMATE HANDS – Finger length linked with cooperative, competitive & sexual behavior!

Finger length in primates linked with cooperative, competitive, and sexual behavior! Research at the universities of Liverpool and Oxford into the finger length of various primate species has revealed that cooperative behavior is linked to exposure to hormone levels in the womb! The sientists have used finger ratios as an indicator of the levels of exposure to the hormone and compared this data with social behaviour in primate groups. The team found that Old World monkeys, such as baboons and rhesus macaques, have a longer fourth finger in comparison to the second finger, which suggests that they have been exposed to high levels of prenatal androgens. These species tend to be highly competitive and promiscuous, which suggests that exposure to a lot of androgens before birth could be linked to the expression of this behaviour. Other species, such as gibbons and many New World apes, have digit ratios that suggest low levels of prenatal androgen exposure. These species were monogamous and less competitive than Old World monkeys. The results show that Great Apes, such as orangutans and chimpanzees, expressed a different finger ratio. The analysis suggests that early androgen exposure is lower in this groups compared to Old World monkeys. Lower androgen levels could help explain why Great Apes show high levels of male cooperation and tolerance. HOW CAN WE UNDERSTAND THESE RESULTS? Primate finger length researcher Emma Nelson explains: “It is thought that prenatal androgens affect the genes responsible for the development of fingers, toes and the reproductive system. High androgen levels from a foetus or mother during pregnancy, may alter gene function and lead to subtle changes in relative digit length and the functioning of the reproductive system. Finger ratios do not change very much after birth and appear to tell us something about how very early androgens affect adult behaviour, particularly behaviour linked to mating and reproduction.” ILLUSTRATION: A comparison of the human hand with primate hands reveals that only the human hand is featured with a long opposable thumb! SUGGESTION FOR FURTHER READING: • Finger length linked with social behavior! • Understanding our past: “the primate hand vs. the human hand”! • More finger length reports! • Evolution of the human hand & the mystery of the 5 fingers!

Planet mars has a gigantic fingerprint – about NASA’s hand of God!

An impression from Mars. ‘Fingerprint of God’? Earlier this year (april) NASA reported a Chandra X-ray observatory including a ghostly blue cloud that resembled a hand with outstretched fingers grasping a ball of fire – the media were joking amused: ‘It’s the hand of God!‘. In the first week of september NASA reported another phenomenon found on planet Mars: a striking range of dunes and craters (see also the photo below) that appears to form a giant cosmic fingerprint on the surface of the Red Planet. Scientists believe the undulating ground reveals global climate changes that took place on Mars over the past few million years. The area is in the Coprates region, a large trough that forms part of the Valles Marineris – a system of canyons stretching thousands of miles along Mars’ equator. The whitish areas could be evaporites – mineral sediments left behind when salt water evaporates. Such deposits would be of great interest as they indicate potential habitats for past martian life. The detailed image is just one of thousands of pictures recently unveiled taken by Nasa’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The images were collected using a High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera during more than 1,500 telescopic observations. Each full image from HiRISE, taken between April and August last year, covers a strip of Martian ground six kilometers (3.7 miles) wide, showing details as small as one metre, or yard, across. They are the most detailed pictures of the Red Planet’s surface taken from space. SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING: • Evolutionary hand analysis! • A NASA report from the cosmos: the hand of God! • Hosanna… a Palm Sunday hand reading! • Why God made five fingers for each hand! A close up shot of gullies at the edge of the Hale Crater on the red planet Mars: Planet Mars:

New hand axe facts from prehistoric Spain!

Nature reports a true milestone in the evolution of human kind! After a report earlier this year in National Geographic about the oldest prehistoric handprints in French and Spanish cave walls, researchers have reported this month in Nature found that human ancestors living in what is now Spain fashioned double-edged stone cutting tools as early as 900,000 years ago, almost twice as long ago as previous estimates for this technological achievement in Europe! If confirmed, the new dates support the idea that the manufacture and use of teardrop-shaped stone implements, known as hand axes, spread rapidly from Africa into Europe and Asia beginning roughly 1 million years ago, say geologist Gary Scott and paleontologist Luis Gibert, both of the Berkeley Geochronology Center in California. A summary quote from the Nature report: “Stone tools are durable reminders of the activities, skills and customs of early humans, and have distinctive morphologies that reflect the development of technological skills during the Pleistocene epoch. In Africa, large cutting tools (hand-axes and bifacial chopping tools) became part of Palaeolithic technology during the Early Pleistocene (1.5 Myr ago). However, in Europe this change had not been documented until the Middle Pleistocene (<0.5 Myr ago). Here we report dates for two western Mediterranean hand-axe sites that are nearly twice the age of the supposed earliest Acheulian in western Europe. Palaeomagnetic analysis of these two sites in southeastern Spain found reverse polarity magnetozones, showing that hand-axes were already in Europe as early as 0.9 Myr ago. This expanded antiquity for European hand-axe culture supports a wide geographic distribution of Palaeolithic bifacial technology outside of Africa during the Early Pleistocene.” SUGGESTION FOR FURTHER READING: • Evolutionary hand analysis! • Handprints indicate: ‘European cave artists were female’!

The oldest portrait of a male was a hand print found in the French Chauvet cave!

Take a look at the world’s oldest handprint! The Chauvet cave in the south-east of France contains the oldest known cave paintings in the world. The most common themes in cave paintings are large wild animals, such as bison, horses, aurochs, and deer… and tracings of human hands! Interestingly, the Chauvet cave is also known for containing the world’s oldest handprint: see the picture above. Looking at the details: the short pointer finger and the very long ring finger + pinky indicate that like this is the handprint of a male person. The largest collection of cave handprints is found in another French cave: the ‘Gargas cave‘ in the French Pyrenees – which has become know as the ‘cave with the missing fingers’. For, many of the 231 handprints in this cave have one or more missing fingers (see the picture below) – likely this was the result of some sort of ’sign language’ of hand gestures. “The handprint to the right is a cave painting drawn 32,000 years ago and is the oldest portrait of man. On the walls of Chauvet Cave in southern France, the artist used the technology of his day, tinted charcoal dust blown through a straw, to create a simple, yet powerful icon of human-ness. This image captures the essence of human-centered computing. Much like the Paleolithic beings, we still use technology to relate to, understand and depict the world around us, still trying to say “I am here. I am human.” In 2007 a ‘wall of celebrity handprints‘ was created in the US – the hand prints were sold afterwards for charity; and in the same year the book ‘celebrity handprints‘ was published – including the hand prints of a few dozens of UK celebrities. SUGGESTION FOR FURTHER READING: • Evolutionary hand analysis! • Males vs. Females: sexe differences in the hand!

Handprints indicate: many European cave artists were female!

Handprints indicate: many European cave artists were female! So far most scientists have assumed that prehistoric handprints on cave walls were male. Archaeologist Dean Snow from Pennsylvania State University has recently described in National Geographic that the characteristics of many cave handprints indicate that there are lots of female hands among them! For about as long as humans have created works of art, they’ve also left behind handprints. People began stenciling, painting, or chipping imprints of their hands onto rock walls at least 30,000 years ago. An illustrative example concerns the Cosquer Cave (Marseille, France), where 55 handprints have been found. Hand proportions vary across populations – some illustrative examples are presented in this collection of celebrities handprints. To assess prehistoric handprints from Europe, Snow used modern hands for comparison. By measuring and analyzing the Pech Merle Cave (Cabrerets, France) hand stencils, Snow found that many were female. Professor of Archaeological Anthropology Dean Snow says: “The very long ring finger on the left is a dead giveaway for male hands. The one on the right has a long index finger and a short pinky – thus very feminine.” SUGGESTION FOR FURTHER READING: • Evolutionary hand analysis! • Males vs. Females: sexe differences in the hand!

The six digit man – hand satire from the Bill Gates Medical Center!

What will be the next step in the evolution of the human hand? All ‘tetrapods’ have 4 limbs with 5 fingers. Even the panda has only 5 digits + an unusual outgrowth of the wrist bone. So, the Leek’s funny idea that man could develop a 6th finger can only best be described as a funny joke … but a mission impossible! Quoted from The Leek: “The Next Step in Evolution: Six Digit Man’ Leads the Way to the Future: Researchers at the Bill Gates Medical Center in Seattle were astonished to discover that a patient, who was recently admitted with severe wrist pains, had six functional fingers in his left hand (see X-Ray image below). The patient, now dubbed “Homo Digitus”, is believed to form the next step in human evolution. “For the last two decades we have been waiting to see how the human race would adapt to working with computers, and finally we were handed the answer” says Genetics Expert, Dr. Harry Ditty. According to Ditty Harry, Hox genes controlling the development of body parts have so far prevented the formation a sixth independent digit. However, it seems that the frequent need to use the key combination has finally triggered the previously unknown “Keystrokes genes” to prevail. Other experts noted that the new finger configuration significantly enhances the versatility of the human hand. “In addition to the existing ‘precision grip’, used when holding a pencil, and ‘power grip’, used when holding a hammer, subjects of the mutation will be able to apply the new ‘anguish grip’, which is extremely handy when using the Microsoft Windows operating system” says Han D. Man, chief handyman at the Hand Institute of Handuras. The patient himself, whose name remains undisclosed, was quoted as saying: “I never imagined the incredible impact I was going to have on civilization. All I wanted to do was to give my computer the finger”. Read further about: The mystery of the five fingers & The hand of God

Research: fingerprints are unlikely to increase ‘grip’ to our hands!

In may 2009 Dr Roland Ennos and his team at The University of Manchester presented fingerprints findings with a surprizing outcome. Fingerprints do not help primates grip, as previously thought. Instead, a fingerprint actually reduces the friction needed to hold onto flat surfaces. Dr Ennos disproved the long-held assumption that fingerprints help primates to grip with a simple machine, three strips of perspex and the right hand of Masters student Peter Warman. They tested the student’s grip on every finger + thumb at three different widths of perspex as the machine pulled the perspex strips down via a weight in a plastic cup. The researchers also tested grip at three different angles by bending both the fingers + the thumb. This wide range of testing conditions allowed them to separate pressing force from the contact area and overcome any confounding variables. The results indicate that fingertips act more like rubbers than hard solids; their friction coeficient fell at higher normal forces and friction was higher when fingers were held flatter against wider sheets and hence when contact area was greater. WHY DO WE HAVE FINGERPRINTS? Dr Ennos answers the question as follows: “The experiment was so simple, this discovery could have been made 100 years ago; but scientists make assumptions and tend to look at complicated things instead. My preferred theory is that they allow the skin to deform and thus stop blistering. That is why we get blisters on the smooth parts of our hands and feet and not the ridged areas: our fingerpads, palms and soles.” SUGGESTIONS FOR LEARNING MORE ABOUT FINGERPRINTS: • The latest news about fingerprints! • Evolutionary hand analysis: the mystery of the 5 fingers! • 20 Facts about your fingerprints, skin & dermatoglyphics!