GENETICS OR NOT?
BY ABREISHAE’ M.
MR.LEINGANG PERIOD 4
ABSTRACT
I chose to do this project because I wanted
to know what will happen. I believed that they
would be similar. Some things that went
wrong were the number of people was in the
materials but not the procedure. If I redo this
in the future I will change those mistakes. I
learned my out come wasn’t wrong just my
hypothesis was incorrect.
QUESTION
ARE peoples fingerprint on every right finger the
same ?
HYPOTHESIS
AS I TEST A COUPLE PEOPLES RIGHT HANDS
THEN I WILL FIND THEY HAVE SIMILAR
FINGERPRINTS BECAUSE THERE GENETICS
MATERIALS
1) ONE INK PAD
2) TWO THICK
PIECES OF
PAPER
3) 7 PEOPLE
VARIABLES
RV- THE SIMILARITIES BETWEEN THE PRINTS
MV-THE PERSON BEING TESTED
THE FINGERS BEING TESTED
CV-THE INK PAD
TYPE OF PAPER
Background information
Before the mid-1800s, law enforcement officers with extraordinary visual memories,
so-called "camera eyes," identified previously arrested offenders by sight. Photography
lessened the burden on memory but was not the answer to the criminal identification
problem. Personal appearances change. Around 1870, a French anthropologist devised a
system to measure and record the dimensions of certain bony parts of the body. These
measurements were reduced to a formula which, theoretically, would apply only to one
person and would not change during his/her adult life. This Bertillon System, named after its
inventor, Alphonse Bertillon, was generally accepted for thirty years. But it never recovered
from the events of 1903, when a man named Will West was sentenced to the U.S.
Penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kansas. It was discovered that there was already a prisoner at
the penitentiary at the time, whose Bertillon measurements were nearly the same, and his
name was William West.
Upon investigation, there were indeed two men who looked exactly alike. Their names
were Will and William West respectively. Their Bertillon measurements were close enough to
identify them as the same person. However, a fingerprint comparison quickly and correctly
identified them as two different people. (Per prison records discovered later, the West men
were apparently identical twin brothers and each had a record of correspondence with the
same immediate family relatives.)
Background (continued)
Yes, identical twins share identical DNA, but there fingerprints are determined by the environment
in the uterus. So no, identical twins do not have identical fingerprints. Every person, including identical
twins, has a unique eye and tongue print along with their finger print. In fact, before the arrival of modern
genetic testing, similarity of fingerprints was often used to determine whether twins were identical or
fraternal. Identical twins, you'll recall, are genetic duplicates who develop from a single egg. Fraternal
twins develop from separate eggs and are no more closely related than ordinary siblings, except that they
spend nine months sharing an extremely small bedroom. Identical twins are identical because they have
the same DNA. They have that same DNA because they come from the same fertilized egg, which splits
and grows into two embryos instead of just one. Such twins are also called monozygotic twins. If DNA
completely determined the structure of your body, then identical twins would be truly identical, and the
answer to your question would be yes.
As it happens, there are inheritable factors other than DNA (we'd need a long detour to explain
them, but suffice it to say that DNA isn't everything), and the development of your body depends in part
on external factors. Fingerprints form before birth, but are influenced by small differences in what the
fetuses experience in uterus. Fingerprints take on more or less definite shapes around 13 weeks, and while
twins will often have some matching features to their fingerprints, they won't quite have identical ones.
Fingerprints offer an infallible means of personal identification. That is the essential explanation
for their having supplanted other methods of establishing the identities of criminals reluctant to admit
previous arrests. The science of fingerprint Identification stands out among all other forensic sciences for
many reasons, including the following: Has served all governments worldwide during the past 100 years
to provide accurate identification of criminals. No two fingerprints have ever been found alike in many
billions of human and automated computer comparisons. Fingerprints are the very basis for criminal
history foundation at every police agency.
Background
Patterns of Fingerprint
Fingerprint is the one part of a human being
that is absolutely unique to each and every person. The
patterns of fingerprint are a way to find the absolute
truth of a person's identity and is an interesting
phenomenon to study. Fingerprints have been used as a
form of identification since the ancient times. There are
some basic patterns that most fingerprints can fall
under. Each person will have a Whorl, Arch, or Loop on
each fingertip.
The fingerprints can be divided into four
generalized patterns: The Arch, Loop, Whorl and Mixed
Figure. The Loops can be categorized into Right Loop,
Left Loop, and Double Loop. The Arches can be
categorized into Plain Arch and Tented Arch. And, the
Whorls can be categorized into Spiral Whorl and Target
(or the Bulls-eye) Whorl, etc.
Fingerprints are basically horizontal lines
running across our fingertips that are "twisted." For
example, the Arch pattern has a very little "twist," the
Loop has more "twist," then the Whorl is a complete
"twist" resulting in a whorl. According to the statistics,
Loops constitute about 65 percent of the total
fingerprints patterns; Whorls make up about 30 percent,
and Plain and Tented Arches together account for the
other 5 percent.
Procedure
1. Take out all materials.
2. Take the first person
with your assistance
and place each finger
one at a time carefully
on ink and paper.
3. Repeat this with each
Person.
4. Place prints on data
chart to record Note
:that we only test the
right hand on the
volunteers.
Data Table
Names
Right thumb Right
pointer
Right
middle
Right index
Right pinky
Conclusion
I thought that if I recorded the fingerprints of
people then there fingers will be the same was
incorrect. Our results showed that the prints are in
fact patterned same but not that much not the same.
We can prove this because the volunteers most have
the common type and the differences were in the.
This misrepresents our original hypothesis. Therefore
if we next time test more people and the results will
most likely change.
References on Fingerprints
www.onio.com/fp/fphistory.html
www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2008/09/08
/are_fingerprints_of_identical_twins_identical
http://shs.westport.k12.ct.us/forensic/04ffingerprint
s/handout.html
www.straightdoope.com/colomns/read/1277/do_ide
ntical_twins_have_different_fingerprints
www.answerbag.comQ_view/1188087
www.google.com
www.google.com/search/history/fingerprints/of
www.essortment.com/all/fingerprinthist_rmmv.htm