Is Each Fingerprint On Your Hand Unique? | In This Computer Component, Data Slides Through Honey

A new study uses artificial intelligence to show that each of our ten fingerprints are remarkably similar to one another. Plus, honey could be the secret ingredient in building a more eco-friendly “memristor,” which transmits data through malleable pathways.

We often think about each fingerprint as being completely unique, like a snowflake on the tip of your finger.

But a new study shows that maybe each person’s fingerprints are more similar to each other than we thought. Researchers trained artificial intelligence to identify if a thumbprint and a pinky print came from the same person. They found that each of a person’s ten fingerprints are remarkably similar in the swirly center.

Ira talks with study author Gabe Guo, an undergraduate at Columbia University majoring in computer science, based in New York City.

A honey bear is probably one of the weirder things you’d see in a science lab, especially in a lab making computer parts.

“It’s just processed, store-bought honey,” said Ph.D. student Zoe Templin. “Off the shelf — a little cute bear so we can put it in photos.”

But for Templin and her colleagues at Washington State University, Vancouver, the honey is key.

“It is cheap and it is easily accessible to everyone,” said master’s student Md Mehedi Hassan Tanim.

The honey also has natural chemical properties that make it a promising foundation for a new kind of environmentally friendly computer component — one that could make computing faster and more energy efficient while reducing the impact on the environment.

Read the rest of this article on sciencefriday.com.

Transcripts for each segment will be available the week after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.

Subscribe to this podcast. Follow our show on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Bluesky @scifri and sign up for our newsletters. Got a science question that’s keeping you up at night? Call us: 877-472-4374

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.