Fun Facts About Your Hands

Which grows faster, your fingernails or your toenails?
Fingernails
Toenails
About the same
Which grows faster, your fingernails or your toenails?
Fingernails grow about twice as fast as toenails, at 3.47 millimeters per month compared with 1.62 millimeters per month.

Which hand does more of the work when typing?
Right hand
Left hand
Equal amounts, 50/50
Which hand does more of the work when typing?
If you position your hands correctly on the keyboard, your left hand will do 56% of the work.

Which finger are you most likely to break?
Thumb
Index finger
Pinky
Which finger are you most likely to break?
Broken pinkies make up about one-third of all hand fractures in adults. Why? The pinky isn't as protected hanging out there on the end, and the bone is about the width of a pencil.

How many muscles are in each finger?
Two
Five
None
How many muscles are in each finger?
Even though most of your body’s moving parts have muscles, your fingers don't. They're moved by muscles in your wrist, palm, and forearm that are attached to tendons, or tough bands of connective tissue, in your fingers.

Your fingernails continue to grow after you die.
True
False
Your fingernails continue to grow after you die.
That's a myth, as is the one about hair. Dehydration causes a corpse's skin and soft tissues to shrink, making the nails look longer.

Only humans have opposable thumbs.
True
False
Only humans have opposable thumbs.
Most apes and monkeys can touch their thumbs to their other fingers. Opossums have opposable thumbs, too. Still, you can move your thumb farther across your hand than a non-human primate can.

What causes a difference in length between your ring and index fingers?
Protein
Testosterone
Genetics
What causes a difference in length between your ring and index fingers?
The difference is determined by this sex hormone early on during a baby's growth in the womb. Most men have longer ring fingers, while the opposite is true for many women.

Does cracking your knuckles cause arthritis?
Yes
No
Does cracking your knuckles cause arthritis?
Crack away! Someone might've fed you this myth because they couldn’t stand the annoying sound. The popping noise you hear isn’t bone on bone -- it’s the bursting of small gas bubbles in the joint. And studies show there's no link between the habit and stiff, painful joints.

What’s the chance that two right-handed parents will have a left-handed child?
5%
10%
25%
What’s the chance that two right-handed parents will have a left-handed child?
Scientists think hand preference stems from genetics, hormones, and development. Still, two left-handed parents are the most likely combo to have a left-handed child, with odds of about 30% to 40%.

Fingernails have no feeling.
True
False
Fingernails have no feeling.
Your nails don't have sensation (otherwise you couldn’t trim them without screaming). But your nail bed is packed with nerve endings and blood vessels. That's why a tap on the nail is felt below.