An adult hand showing a single transverse palmar crease (Photo credit: Wikipedia)I'm approaching my 30s but sure enough I don't know everything about my body like I should. Do you? It was recently pointed out to me by a dear friend that she and I share a very similar trait. It's called (layman terms) the Simian Crease (also: simian line). It was pointed out because she and I are both Sagittarius by astrological definitions, so it was just another nifty thing in common we have. Silly me, I used to know how to read palms, even though I am an atheist who doesn't take these things with entire seriousness. Why didn't I question the straight line in the center of my left palm? Why did it take me all these years to sit down, look at my palm, and be like"Whoa dude, look at my hands."
I found myself Googling "Straight line across palm," and that's when she and I found out that it's actually a thing (the simian crease).. and quite a rare thing at that. In fact, it's quite ironic that I possess this characteristic, seeing as though I study criminal justice and I am a crime analyst. Very ironic, indeed! Do you have a simian crease? If you do, you could possess the very same traits that could lead to criminal behavior. Or could you?
The term "simian crease" is often used as a negative term, but it's also called single radial traverse line among many other technical words that don't really matter for the purpose of this blog. You can Google the actual terms just by searching "simian crease," so do that.
Anyway, it's a feature that appears to be exceptionally rare affecting approximately 10% of the human population. People who have the crease on both hands, like actor Rain Wilson, account for only 5% of the population -- so they are even more rare.
In my case, I have a "simian crease" on my left hand, but my right hand is totally normal. I share this feature with Albert Einstein, Robert DiNiero and Hilary Clinton. Hilary Clinton, my female friend and I are all a little bit more special because we are women. It's more dominant in males.
So there happens to be a lot of information out there about this so-called "simian crease." It's been connected to a few different chromosomal anomalies such as Down's Syndrome and Turner's Syndrome, and even Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. Nonetheless, I do not have any of these afflictions. Obviously nor do Hilary Clinton or Rober DeNiro or any of the other "famous persons" who have this trait. So what else if not a chromosomal abnormality, causes this?
It's often found in people who have native American or Asian blood or ancestry. Something else new I learned today: I'm 1/16 Cherokee on my mother's side. So maybe that's where I get this rare and interesting feature on my left hand? I'm certainly not Asian!
Upon deeper research I found that there have been studies linking crime to persons with the "simian hand" trait. How interesting indeed, seeing as though I am a CJ major and currently work in the CJ industry independently. Still, I can't deny that I was once a juvenile delinquent like many young people experience in their more rebellious years. But it isn't like I killed anyone. My crimes were more the average teenage shenanigans compared to the crime topics I cover.
Moving on:
One source says that about 29% of criminals have this crease, so considering only 10% of the population has the crease, it's probably safe to say that many of us are criminals. Who knows how accurate that study is, though, but the crease has also been tied to psychoses of different types. Oh goodie!
Do you have a simian crease?
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| My simian crease..holding a very tiny carrot so I could feel like a giant. |
