Re: Are fingerprints hereditary traits?

  Well, this is an interesting question.  I looked into it, and couldn't 
find anything specifically about the heredity of fingerprints.  But, 
through a little inductive reasoning, I think we can figure it out.  
Basically, we all know that no two persons' fingerprints are alike, right?  
That's what lets the police actually catch people by using fingerprints.  
Because this is true, we know that fingerprints can't be "inherited" like 
other things can (for instance, height, or hair color.)  If they could be 
inherited, then everyone would have fingerprints similar to one of their 
parents (depending on who they had inherited them from.)  Since this 
question seems to come from a science fair aspect, i think you should do 
some experiments to test your hypothesis.  By looking at and comparing 
parents' fingerprints to their child's fingerprints, perhaps you can find 
that some aspects of fingerprint pattern are inherited.  That would be 
pretty interesting, and as far as I know, you'd be the first person in the 
field to research this particular aspect of pattern formation.