Everyone knows that when people leave fingerprints at the scene of a crime, it is almost certain the police will be able to track down the culprit. Each individual has a specific fingerprint that is completely his/her own. Even twins have different fingerprints. Therefore, when someone leaves a fingerprint, it is so easy to identify whose it was. No one in the world will have a matching fingerprint. It belongs to just one person.

However, it is clear that fingerprints were not created so that we could easily identify criminals at the crime scenes. So, why were they invented?

Some scientists believe that fingerprints were developed to help us feel the subtle things in life. Like peach fuzz on someones face or the rough surface of sandpaper. The sense of touch in our finger prints is from the skin vibrations as the ridges and crevices of our fingers slide past an object.

In 2009, a team of French researchers created an experiment that attempted to study how much of an effect our fingerprints have on our sense of touch. The scientists found that the ridges in our fingertips create a vibrancy on the surface as we brush our fingers by. The vibrations are then registered and noticed by nerve endings called Pacinian corpuscles. To read more about these, click here. From the Pacinian corpuscles, the information is passed on to sensory neurons and eventually the brain.

Other scientists believed that fingerprints were important because they allow us to grip things. The ridges in our finger prints help to create more friction between what we want to pick up and our fingers. Some scientists believed that without fingerprints it would become very difficult to grip objects and that they might even slip out from our fingers. However, a recent study has proved this theory wrong.

In a study that was published in the Journal of Experimental Biology, a team of scientists evaluated the rate of friction between our skin and any entity. However, they only found that it was a low amount. Also, they discovered that smooth skin had 33% more contact with glass than the fingerprints did. It seems that the ridges in the fingerprints prevented some of their fingers from coming into contact with the glass and therefore reduced the grip rather than improve it.

So, yeah, if you want to commit a crime without getting caught, it would definitely be beneficial to burn your finger prints off. However, if you want to be able to sense and feel the small details of our surroundings, scientists suggest that it may be smarter if we keep our fingerprints.

http://health.howstuffworks.com/human-body/parts/why-do-we-have-fingerprints1.htm