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Lyle Zapato

Happy Birthday Kamani Hubbard!

Lyle Zapato | 2009-02-05.5550 LMT | Polydactylism

Three weeks ago, Kamani Hubbard was born with fully functional sixth digits on both hands and feet. While polydactylism occurs in 1 out of 500 births, it's very rare for the digits to be more than deformities. Kamani's extra fingers and toes are so perfect that no one noticed the abnormal number until his father spotted them well after birth.

While the decision to remove the extra digits is the parents', Kamani's doctors are advising that he be allowed to keep them:

"It's merely an interesting and beautiful variation rather than a worrisome thing. I would be tempted to leave those fingers in place," said Dr Michael Treece, a paediatrician at St Luke's.

"I realise children would tease each other over the slightest things, and having extra digits on each hand is more than slight. But imagine what sort of pianist a 12-fingered person would be. Imagine what sort of a flamenco guitarist. If else, think of their typing skills."

Baseball experts have already pointed out that the extra fingers could come in extremely useful in pitching the ball.

Now that humanity is beginning to perfect lateral polydactylism -- possibly as part of some sort of flamenco-guitar-related sexual-selective force -- could we start seeing the inevitable exponential polydactylism necessary to manifest the Handelbrot Set?

End of post.