Klarinet Archive - Posting 000638.txt from 2000/05

From: Schaffner Thomas <schaffne@-----.ch>
Subj: Re: [kl] an interesting article
Date: Fri, 12 May 2000 11:00:39 -0400

I sold my horn (ratio > 1.0)

ThomasSchaffner MD
Dept. of Pathology
University of Bern, Switzerland
schaffne@-----.ch

Diane Karius, Ph.D. <dikarius@-----.edu> wrote:

> The study looked at the ratio between the length of the second
> and fourth fingers in musicians from "a British symphony orchestra".
> a low ratio indicates that the fourth finger is longer than the
> second finger, 1 indicates that they are the same length. The ratio
> between these two fingers is apparently set in utero by exposure to
> testosterone (at least in part) - the more testosterone there is,
> the lower the ratio between those two fingers. Their hypothesis was
> that prenatal testosterone exposure may "facilitate musical ability".

> They also compared within the
> orchestra and found that (and I'm not sure how they did
> this) the greater the musical ability (standing in section?) the
> lower the ratio.
>
> They found that the male musicians of the orchestra did in fact
> have a lower ratio between those two fingers than the average male
> (indicating, presumeably, more testosterone exposure in utero).

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