Forensics homework... short answer question:

Can Fingerprints Be Altered?  Why/why not?

A simple question, simple answer, takes only two sentences to answer.  There was only enough space on the worksheet for about 3 lines anyway.

But I, as always, got carried away, and typed frantically.  You could imagine the look on my teacher's face when I turned this in (it was worth the extra credit points) (this is less of a satire to science than my other writing, and is actually intended to be accurately informative on fingerprints in general)

 

 

 The typical answer to this question is a flat no. However, after being exposed to a powerful creativity field, perhaps there does indeed exist a way to alter prints.

 

First, the facts.

 

Fact #1: Fingerprints reside in the dermal layer of skin, below the epidermis.

Fact #2: Identical twins have different fingerprints

Fact #3: Fingerprints develop at birth, and are permanent and unique.

Fact #4: A rare condition exists that negates fingerprints' existence, correlated with lack of sweat glands.

Fact #5: Fingerprints exist only on the padded part of hands and feet (the concave part)

Fact #6: Palm lines exist in roughly the same location, but the ridges are more bold and longer.

(It's all common knowledge, so citations are unnecessary)

 

Now, some analysis.

 

Based on fact #2, it can be shown that fingerprints are not related to DNA. Thus, there must be some other cause. Palm lines are defined by the frequency, power, and location of muscular movement in the hand. Repeated similar movements cause the skin to crease about a number of lines, which create the hand prints. Granted, fingertips do not have a series of muscles that vary tension and stress on the print, but it is likely that the print is caused by minute differences in stress and tension between individual cells, at birth.

 

Minute pressure differences could be caused by a variety of factors. Two prominent ones are dust particles and heat. Before the fingerprint is created, the skin is flat and smooth (Fact #7) (perhaps this is due to friction resulting from multifocal skin contact, supporting Fact #5), but soon expands its surface area, still limiting the volume. Ridges must be created to accommodate the surface area increase. Like a beam that breaks in the location where it is the weakest, regardless of how close in weakness the second weakest point is, the skin on the fingertip gives way to the ridge formation, no matter how minute the differences in material resistance are. Hyperbolic skin is created.

 

Another theory is that the blood vessels and sweat glands in the dermal layer of skin push upwards. Minute differences are again created, but these are a result of internal factors rather than external. This is the more likely, as Fact #4 supports this theory more than the former.

 

Based on the analysis of facts, a series of simple steps may be followed to alter a print.

 

Step 1: Burn/Corrode/Scrape/Peel off the epidermal layer of skin above the print.

Step 2: Embed nanotechnology into skin.

Step 3: ????

Step 4: Profit!

 

Steps 2&3 could use a bit of explanation. In short, “magic happens.” The long-winded explanation is that the nanobots dig into the skin and displace the sweat pores and blood vessels by a miniscule amount. They then form an array over the dermis and link to 4 lattice neighbors each. A current passes through them, affecting local pressure on various locations of the skin, parallel to the vessels and pores. It takes about a week for the individual skin cells to adjust, but then viola! Fingerprint alteration!

Very nice work! Perhaps a bit to be done on the nanotech to make it a reality.