Palm readers may not be the only ones who can tell a lot about people by examining their hands.

Recently, scientists in North America and Europe have looked to the relative lengths of index and ring fingers for clues about a variety of characteristics, including musical ability, athletic prowess and, in a study just released, osteoarthritis risk.

The researchers believe that the difference between the two fingers’ lengths signifies the level of testosterone exposure in the womb. The longer the ring finger compared to the index finger, the thinking goes, the higher the exposure.

Scientists express the fingers’ relative lengths as a ratio, computed by dividing index finger length by ring finger length. Men tend to have longer ring fingers than index fingers, or ratios less than 1, and women tend to have index and ring fingers of equal length, or ratios of 1.

Don’t worry if your finger ratio looks to be more like that of the opposite sex, says Marc Breedlove, professor of neuroscience at Michigan State University. There’s less of a sex difference in finger ratios than there is in height, he says.