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The whorls, arches and loops that make fingerprints unique are produced during fetal development by waves of tiny ridges that form on the fingertip, spread and then collide with each other — similar to the process that gives a zebra its stripes, or a cheetah its spots. In a study1 published on 9 February in Cell, researchers found that the interplay between two proteins — one that stimulates ridge formation, and another that inhibits it — produces periodic waves of ridges that emerge from three distinct regions on the fingertip. The precise locations of these regions and the collisions between the waves yields the unique pattern of a fingerprint. “To come up with these different patterns o...View all