Can future sports stars be predicted just by looking at the length of an individuals fingers?
According to new research, led by Professor Tim Spector from the Twin Research Unit at King’s, women whose ring fingers are longer than their index fingers should achieve higher levels in sports. The ratio of the length of the index finger to the ring finger (2d: 4d) has already been shown to be associated in males with diverse traits including cognitive ability, disease susceptibility, sexuality, sperm counts and aspects of personality. This new study is the largest one to date looking at women’s 2d: 4d ratio and sporting ability. The research, which is published online today in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, involved examining hand radiographs of 607 female twins aged 25-79 years from the UK, and the lengths of the second and fourth fingers of each hand were measured. Participants also ranked their highest level achieved in a list of 12 sports on a questionnaire. Investigators found that the highest achieved level of participation in any sport was significantly associated wi
