By Bill Briggs

We are our fingerprints.

From the loops on our thumbs to the whorls on our pinky toes, no human shares the same delicate swoops on the skin of our palms and feet. But those inimitable wrinkles on our digits didn't develop just to let us access keyless doors, or bust us for being at the scene of a crime. What is the biological purpose of those tiny, raised crinkles?

It's long been thought that the distinct skin patterns reduce surface friction when we're grasping or holding objects — that the the friction improves our grip. However, British researchers have found that fingerprints actually make it more difficult for people and primates to grip and hold flat, smooth things.

Mary Altaffer / AP

"Because the skin is ridged, a lot of the fingertip isn't touching the surface," explains lead researcher Dr. Roland Ennos, a biomechanics expert at the University of Manchester in England's faculty of life sciences. "Think of the tires on a Formula 1 race car, or on an Indianapolis car. They want to have the best grip as possible, so they use flat tires. In just the same way, our fingertips – because they are ridged – don't have the same grip they would if they were perfectly flat."

To get a better grasp of the science, Ennos' team built a contraption that looks a little like a guillotine. A sheet of Perspex (a plastic also known as Plexiglas) was hung from a cross beam. The beam was then lowered and raised while student Peter Warman held the strip between the fingers and thumb on his right hand. While measuring the force of his clasp on the Perspex, the machine pulled the strip down via a weighted plastic cup. The team tried three different widths of Perspex as well as three different grip angles to mathematically separate Warman's own pressing force from the contact area, and to weed out any variables.
Their research, published in the June Journal of Experimental Biology, found the student's fingerprints added slip, not grip.

Humans aren't the only creatures with skin prints, either. Why do koalas have them? Why do monkeys in South America have similar prints on their tails? Ennos has a theory.

The padded sections of our hands and feet that do the toughest physical work – grabbing, twisting, pushing, pulling and thrusting – are laced with prints. The grooves and ridges give those swaths of our skin more elasticity. They allow the skin to stretch and distort as the labor takes place. The opposite is true of the smooth areas of our hands and feet. After withstanding excessive friction, they rip or collect fluid between the skin's various layers.

"When you do 'DIY' work or when you're walking with ill-fitting boots, it's the areas which haven't got the ridges that tend to get blisters," Ennos said. "My idea is that by having fingerprints, the skin is actually about twice as flexible. It struck me that having a fingerprint is part of a design package that strengthens the skin, allowing it to deform an awful long way without being damaged."

Ennos believes that fingerprints also allow us to more easily grab rougher surfaces and wet objects while they also add sensitivity to our feel. But touch cannot be their main function, he theorized, because the heel is covered with skin ridges yet "isn't used to discriminate anything" if, say, we're trying navigate a dark room.

The British researcher has applied for additional funding to conduct extra tests on the friction-prevention qualities of our fingerprints. But here's a warning to all interested student subjects: Blisters are part of the job.

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By Diane Mapes

It's hard enough for anybody to find love, but what do you do if you have a genetic disorder that leaves you completely covered with hair?

In the case of circus star Larry Ramos Gomez, better known as "Wolfboy," you get your own reality dating show. At least that's the plan hatched by Zoo Productions, creators of such reality TV fare as "Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?" and "Girls Behaving Badly."
 
Recently divorced, the 31-year-old Mexican, who performs daredevil acrobat acts with his brother Danny, suffers from an extremely rare form of hypertrichosis, a genetic disorder that causes excessive hair growth in places you wouldn't normally expect it, such as the face. The reality show, tentatively titled "Wolfboy: Divorced and Looking for Love," will document Gomez' search for a girlfriend and his quest to find acceptance as a normal guy.

Mary Altaffer / AP

Excessive hairiness and hirsutism, which affects women, can be relatively common and brought on by either family history or secondary factors like polycystic ovary syndrome. But the form of hypertrichosis Gomez suffers from is extremely rare, with only 50 described cases on record since the Middle Ages.

The condition, which Dr. Aires, director of the division of dermatology at the University of Kansas Hospital, characterizes as a "genetic puzzle that has not yet been solved," can be inherited. But not always. Gomez's son, for instance, is not excessively hairy. However, should he have a daughter, she would, based on recent genetic research, likely inherit the disorder since it appears that his particular form of hypertrichosis is "X-linked," Aires says.

In the Gomez brothers, who have generalized congenital hypertrichosis, all of the normally invisible vellus hairs are replaced with thick coarse terminal hairs.

Hypertrichosis is a complex disorder, but it's easier to understand if you first realize that all human beings are essentially covered in hair, Aires says.

"All of us are sort of wolf people, but the hair we're covered with is invisible; it's vellus hair," he says. "After puberty, the hair on men's faces and their chest transforms into the thicker terminal hair. But there are a very small number of people in whom all the areas of the body that would have vellus hair, have terminal hair."

Another disorder known as congenital hypertrichosis lanuginosa (CHL), results in hair that is long and silky and stems not from vellus hair but from the lanugo hair that covers all infants in the womb.

"Everyone has lanugo hair and you'll often see babies born with hairy shoulders and hairy backs and parents panic, but that hair comes out and it doesn't mean anything," says Dr. Aires. "There are some conditions, though, where the lanugo hair persists. That's extremely rare."

Not all hypertrichosis is as severe as that of "Wolfboy."

Localized hypertrichosis, as the name suggests, is where people will experience abnormal hair growth in one or two odd places on their body, such as their elbows (known as hairy elbows syndrome or hypertrichosis cubiti), their ears (hairy pinna) or their tailbone, referred to as faun tail deformity. These forms can be associated with bone abnormalities.

Of course, that doesn't explain sudden growths of ear and nose hairs which can be common among aging men.

There are also cases of acquired hypertrichosis, either due to some type of body trauma (an injury or inflammation) or certain medications.

"Acquired hypertrichosis is not generally going to give you the werewolf appearance but a lot of people will just look hairier than they should," says Dr. Aires. For example, children taking immunosupressive medications for organ transplants will develop dark peach fuzz.

If Gomez gets his own reality dating show, he could become as legendary as Jo Jo, the Dog-faced Boy or The Bearded Lady. Jo-Jo, born Fedor Jeftichejev, was an extremely popular sideshow performer who toured the world with Barnum & Bailey's Greatest Show on Earth in the early 20th century.  The woolly Julia Pastrana, also known as "The Marvelous Hybrid or Bear Woman" was widely exhibited in the U.S. and Europe before her death in childbirth in 1860. Her body was then mummified, along with that of her infant, and put on display by her husband-manager.

Then there was the Gonzales family — consisting of a hairy father, a "normal" mother and five excessively hairy children — who became the bewhiskered "Jon and Kate" of the 16th century and were celebrated throughout Europe.

Unfortunately, others with this rare condition did not fare as well. Ruthlessly exploited, they were labeled as monsters or "wild men" or "human terriers" and said to be the result of a sexual union between human and ape. 

As for treatment, Dr. Aires says that while there are a number of hair removal options available — shaving, waxing, electrolysis, laser, and depilatories — there is no hypertrichosis cure. 

A spokesperson for Zoo Productions says Gomez does trim the hair on his face, but he doesn't attempt to shave it off anymore since it "just grows back."

"Obviously, people with skin conditions are not monsters," Aires says. "Maybe the show will be good and will serve to humanize someone with this unusual condition."

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