OK, I am 88 now, but a few years ago I was supposed to give a thumbprint for some security reason I no loner can remember.
The technician seemed totally bewildered. He looked at all my fingers under strong light,and at an angle, and sure enough, all were gone.
It is pretty difficult to find people my age, but two of my friends, one younger and the other older looked at their fingers when i explained, and sure enough, they had none either.
Will the handful of people here who are in their mid-70s or older take a gander at their fingertips, and let me know what you find. Or don’t find.
Those with older relatives can ask them about this, although it may make them suspicious.
Well, I’m still way on the south side of 70, so won’t give you my personal findings.
But, I did do a bit of a literature search on the subject of fingerprints and aging. Alas, there does not seem to be any simple relationship between the two, and especially nothing to suggest that fingerprints disappear as one ages.
The best single source was from this very recent (and seemingly more than comprehensive) review article which I can’t link to:
Fingerprint composition and aging: A literature review. Cadd S, Islam M, Manson P, Bleay S. Science & Justice 2015; 55(4): 219-38.
I took the following quote from the above paper:
“. . . it may be possible to distinguish fingerprints from donors of different ages. Some research has explored this possibility through the use of calibration curves to estimate a donor age range [17,18] , although larger studies are required to support these conclusions with statistically significant results.”
In other words, there is no simple relationship between fingerprints and age.
When I look with my reading glasses I cannot see any prints. When I add a magnifying glass, I can barely see some lines, but that’s all. I’m 78. My wife, who is 77, is similar. Whether prints can be made from them, I am not sure.
Someone should tell those young whippersnappers at Apple that Touch ID will have a problem…[/QUOTE
Funny.
That’s what got me thinking about the matter. I was looking at some Samsung models that have it too. I assume i would never be able to turn it on. That might be a blessing, of course.
[QUOTE=LSLGuy;18703645
I hadn’t seen a post from **Geoff ** in a long time and was fearing the worst.
I’m real glad to hear from you again. I hope all is going well for you.[/QUOTE]
Good to see you are still here,
We decided to move from Arizona to the Denver area as we have two kids here who can help us if needed, and no family in AZ. I dread going back to winter, as that is wy we moved to the desert. Forty years of shoveling snow was enough. Now I’ll let my son do it.
It took us three months to sell our house, and another two to find a house here, so most of that time my computer was packed up.
Don’t worry, Guy when I croak I’ll let you all know (if they let me take my laptop with me, and they have wifi Up/Down there).
