Research shows that wrinkly fingers and toes may be an evolutionary response to water to help humans grip wet objects. A popular theory for this phenomenon is that water makes the skin swell which makes the skin shrivel and become "pruney". Scientists have demonstrated, however, that this is not the case as the wrinkling in response to water does not happen in people with nerve damage in the fingers. The latest study focused on people picking up wet and dry objects with dry and water-shriveled fingers. Its results demonstrated that people with pruney fingers have much better grip when handling wet objects which suggests to researchers that this may be an evolutionary response. It seems that the actual shriveling in response to being submerged in water is controlled by blood vessel constriction below the skin on fingers and toes.
More about skin:
- The thinnest skin on the human body is found on the eyelid (0.02mm thick) and the thickest is found on the bottom of the feet (1.4mm thick).
- A human sheds over 30,000 dead skin cells every minute.
- For a human, skin accounts for 15% of body weight on average.