Unique?

May 24th, 2025| Topic: RaMbLeS | 1

You thought you were unique? Probably not, they say.

“They,” meaning computer scientists at Columbia University in New York and from SUNY Buffalo. And “they” said so in “Unveiling Intra-person Fingerprint Similarity via Deep Contrastive Learning,” published in Science Advances. Of course, as you can tell, they only claim that different fingers of the same person (“intra-person fingerprints”), thought to be uniquely different, are not so. So … you may still be uniquely different from others. But still, the findings do upend a forensic dogma.

Fingerprint biometrics are based on the unproven assumption that no two fingerprints, even from different fingers of the same person, are alike. This renders them useless in scenarios where the presented fingerprints are from different fingers than those on record. Contrary to this prevailing assumption, we show above 99.99% confidence that fingerprints from different fingers of the same person share very strong similarities.”

Their artificial intelligence model revealed these surprising connections between prints. By using a public database with roughly 60,000 prints, the scientists fed pairs of fingerprints into a “deep contrastive network.” Some pairs belonged to the same person, while others came from different people. The system became adept at telling when prints that looked different were actually from one individual.

Explained another author:

The AI was not using the minutiae of traditional methods—the branchings and endpoints in fingerprint ridges. Instead, it was using something else, related to the angles and curvatures of the swirls and loops in the center of the fingerprint.”

Well, we may not be unique (or, at least, our fingers may not be), but there is one who is. Sui generis!

Praise Yah: praise the name of Yahweh;
praise, servants of Yahweh,
the ones who are standing in the house of Yahweh,
in the courts of the house of our God.
Praise Yah, for Yahweh [is] good;
make music to His name, for it is pleasant.
For Jacob, Yah has chosen for Himself,
Israel, for His own possession.
For I—I know that Yahweh [is] great,
and that our Lord [is greater] than all gods.
All that which Yahweh pleases, He has done,
in the heavens and in the earth, in the seas and in all the depths:
the One causing the clouds to ascend from the ends of the earth;
lightnings for the rain He made, the One bringing out the wind from His storehouses.
He who struck the firstborn of Egypt,
from humans unto cattle,
He sent signs and portents into your midst, Egypt,
against Pharaoh and against all his servants.
He who struck many nations
and He [who] slew mighty kings—
Sihon, king of the Amorites,
and Og, king of Bashan,
and all the kingdoms of Canaan—
He also gave their land as an inheritance,
an inheritance to Israel, His people.
Yahweh, Your name [is] forever,
Yahweh, Your remembrance, from generation to generation.
For Yahweh will govern His people
and in His servants He gets himself relieved [from His concern].
The idols of the nations [are] silver and gold,
the work of human hands.
Mouths they have, but they do not speak;
eyes they have, but they do not see;
ears they have, but they do not [use the] ear,
indeed, [there is] no existence of breath in their mouths.
Like them will be the ones making them,
all the ones who trust in them.
House of Israel, bless Yahweh;
house of Aaron, bless Yahweh; house of Levi, bless Yahweh;
those who fear Yahweh, bless Yahweh.
Blessed be Yahweh from Zion,
the One who abides [in] Jerusalem.
Praise Yah.
Psalm 135:1–21

Yup, unique … and praiseworthy!

SOURCE: Science Advances; Earth.com