Why do Fingers Wrinkle in Water?

Our fingers and toes are always wrinkles if it is too long in the water. Scientists have finally discovered why, thousands of years after humans began to shower to get cleaned up.

Wrinkly fingers make your grip
less slippery. (Picture from:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/)

Tom Smulders, an expert in evolutionary biology nerve from Newcastle University in England, said the wrinkled skin gives a better grip. This physiological adaptation has helped human ancestors uproot plants moist while searching for food.

"The skin is wrinkled also prevents the foot slipping when walking on a wet and slippery environment," said Smulders. Wrinkles on the fingers and toes also helped early humans to develop their initial technology, using tools in wet conditions. "For instance, repair hunting guns in the rain or fishing with a spear," said Smulders.

The old theory states that the fingertips or toes will absorb water when it is in contact with the liquid in a long time. The surface of the skin then swells, wrinkled, and form small folds.

But Smulders research shows it does not happen when the nerves in the fingers broken. Never mind the swell, finger contact with water it will wrinkle because the blood vessels in it to contract. These effects are controlled by the autonomic nervous system, which also regulates breathing and heart rate.

Smulders investigate the benefits of a wrinkled finger after reading papers written Mark Changizi, director of human cognitive sciences at 2AI Laboratory in Idaho, USA. Papers published in the journal Brain, Behavior, and Evolution says that the wrinkles on the finger like a car tire tread and drainage network in the mountains.

Those pruney toes may have helped our ancestors get better footing in wet conditions, and today the wrinkles help us grip objects, scientists have found. (Picture from: http://www.livescience.com/)

"The finger became wrinkled like the workings of a car tire tread that provides a better grip," says Smulders. The results are then published in the journal Biology Letters.

"These findings lead to the question of how and where modern humans inherited this wrinkled skin. Changizi said, all primates have fingers that can be crimped. "Humans likely inherited from monkeys and apes," said the researcher.

Changizi has conducted a series of studies were more modest in the laboratory in Idaho. But the study reached the same conclusion with the statement Smulders. "Your feet and hands are biologically adapted like shoes," he said. *** [GUARDIAN | LIVESCIENCE | MAHARDIKA SATRIA HADI | KORAN TEMPO 4109]

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