The Future of the World May Be in Our Hands - Or, at Least, in a Good Man!

I've always loved my husband's hands.  Thin and long-fingered, they're delicate, like a sculptor's or a pianist's, and yet strong, too.  (He's yanked many a tooth in his career.)

Now experts are saying that you can tell a lot about a man by looking at his hands. Not to be confused with other parts of his body!

But men with short index fingers and long ring fingers are on average nicer towards women, and this stems -- believe it or not -- from the hormones these men have been exposed to in their mother’s womb, according to a new study by researchers at McGill University.  Something new to blame mothers for!

Men with these kinds of hands also tend to have more children. That's not entirely clear but there's a definite link between fetal life and adult behavior.

 “It is fascinating to see that moderate variations of hormones before birth can actually influence adult behaviour in a selective way,” says Simon Young, a McGill Emeritus Professor in Psychiatry and coauthor of the study, at newswise.com.

 Several studies have been conducted previously to try to assess the impact of digit ratio on adult behavior. This one is the first, however, to highlight how finger lengths affect behavior differently depending on the sex of the person you are interacting with.

“When with women, men with smaller ratios were more likely to listen attentively, smile and laugh, compromise or compliment the other person,” says Debbie Moskowitz, lead author and Professor of Psychology at McGill. They acted that way in sexual relationships, but also with female friends or colleagues. These men were also less quarrelsome with women than with men, whereas the men with larger ratios were equally quarrelsome with both. For women though, digit ratio variation did not seem to predict how they behaved, the researchers report.

Who knew our fingers could tell so much?

And why more children, with certain kinds? Common sense. "Our research suggests they have more harmonious relationships with women. These behaviors support the formation and maintenance of relationships with women,” Moskowitz says. “This might explain why they have more children, on average.”

 Here's where the study falls down for us.  We only have one!

I don't really know how much stock you can put in this (there must be at least a few serial killers with short index fingers and long ring fingers).  But researchers are finding out more and more that the time fetuses spend in the womb determines much of their health, and future.  It's where it's decided which genes are expressed, where babies learn words and nursery rhymes spoken by their mothers, even where autism may start.   It has a name,

So, moms take care when you're pregnant.  The future of the world -- or at least the sexes -- are in your hands.