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  You can't clone fingerprints--or irisesNov 03, 2016 11:39 PM PDT | url
 
Added 1 new A* page:I'm fortunate to have readers who are smarter than me; one let me know on Google+ that a couple of the measurements the council member said on page 16 that they took from old surveillance footage, namely fingerprints and a retina scan, can vary between identical twins—or clones—if that's what they were intending to imply. So I edited those out from the dialogue : D; they're both shaped by a combination of the subject's DNA *and* the precise characteristics of the immediate microenvironment, so they will pretty much never come out exactly the same.
 
In looking into that, I realized I hadn't meant to have him say "retinal scan" anyway; a retinal scan looks at the configuration of blood vessels on the back of the interior of the eye; what I had been thinking of is the much more attractive panoply surveyed in iris recognition, which examines the colorful and shockingly complex area on the front of the eye. If you've never seen a close-up photo of the human iris, well, you really should take a look, because it turns out these little irises of ours are incredibly intricate, amazingly varied, and awesomely beautiful—especially when seen in all their microscopic detail!
 
(Note: the medical plural of "iris" is "irides." : o But the plural of Selenis is Selenises! Not "Seleni" or "Selenii" or whatever quasi-Latinate spelling one might have liked to imagine. On the other hand, the plural of "triumvir" can be either "triumvirs," or the more Latinish "triumviri." So you never can tell with these i's. : P)
 
 
 
 
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