Soak in the bath, swim in the sea or dip in one of the estimated three-quarter million private swimming pools in Los Angeles County and sooner or later, you’re bound to experience a superhero power that all of us have! Ready to find out?
Here are five things to know:
- It might amaze you to learn this, but scientists in labs have been trying to figure why, when our digits spend a long time in water, they get wrinkly. Logically, it’s supposed that when we’re in water, our skin soaks it up, causing the outer layers of skin to become swollen and puffy.
- Researchers found that when there’s nerve damage in the fingers, this wrinkling just doesn’t happen. Mind blowing! Then, more experiments by neurobiologists revealed that the reason it happens might even be evolutionary.
- In some experiments, they found hands wrinkled by water were often more able to pick up wet objects than dry ones. This suggests that the pattern of wrinkles is deliberate — like a car tire tread that channels away the water to help us grip wet objects underwater more easily. Wow!
- It’s also possible that this helped humans grab food in streams or get a better grip when barefoot in water. But scientists still aren’t 100% sure. It might well be that it’s more useful for holding onto bigger objects — like heavy things or trees — to help keep us or others from drowning.
- Scientists believe that when we soak our bodies in water, our nervous systems tell our blood vessels to shrink. With less blood in them, the skin folds inwards like a deflated air mattress, creating the wrinkles. There are other medical conditions that can cause the same effect without water, but those are rare. Five minutes or so in the water will usually do the trick.
But so far, until we know 100% for certain why our hands go wrinkly underwater, for now, we’ll just have to enjoy the fact that when we swim or bathe, our digits go all prune-like and be thankful that it’s just our hands and feet that do that!