Fingerprint examiners from 42 countries tested their skills in an online competition co-hosted by the Korean National Police Agency and Interpol, the international police cooperation body, the agency said Thursday. Long before artificial intelligence and algorithms transformed modern crime-fighting, police work relied on a far simpler, time-tested tool: human eyes searching for minute patterns etched onto skin. Last month, that fundamental forensic art took center stage as 279 latent print specialists worldwide stepped away from their automated software to go head-to-head in a high-stakes test of pure human observation. The third annual International Fingerprint Examination Competition, held online on Sept. 17, offered no assistance from computer matching databases. For two grueling hours, contestants were faced with 20 complex fingerprint puzzles, tasked with matching obscure, incomplete latent prints against a field of 50 possible candidates. To mirror the unforgiving reality of real-world casework — where a single misidentification can lead to a wrongful arrest — the scoring syst