The prints on that purloined candy could still ID you
Today’s question:
When I was 5 years old I was fingerprinted on the first day of school. I was wondering if my fingerprints are the same now as they were back then. Obviously you did not save your June 29, 2015, issue of the “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.” Lucky for you I still have mine. That particular issue of that august publication included a study that showed your fingerprints do change a bit over time but not enough to impact forensic analyses.
So if you if you left fingerprints behind that time you swiped a piece of penny candy at the corner store 50 years ago they can still nail you for it.
That aforementioned study followed 15,597 subjects whose prints were taken at least five times over a period of time and found that over larger time intervals the odds of correctly matching a print to a finger in the database decline but “only by an operationally inconsequential amount.”
That is the way folks at the Proceedings of the National Academy Sciences say “not much.”
It turns out your fingerprints not only stick with you through life, but you’ve had them before you even knew you had fingers. Fingerprints form in the womb at around 22 weeks. So you’ve been you since way back when. Recently, a friend of mine told me that he had to take his German-made car to the dealership because the “low air” alert for all four of his tires came on.
On one of his visits he was told that the air in his tires was German because the car was manufactured in Germany. He insisted that it was the missing German air that had to be replenished with American air. Maybe you can explain it better than I can. You made that up.