If Your Fingers Wrinkle In the Tub, Blame Your Nervous System

Carl Lowe | Jan 18, 2013 | Comments 0

Stay in the bathtub long enough and your fingers will wrinkle. That’s no accident. Your autonomic nervous system actually makes it happen. And there may be a good reason for the body to do this.

Researchers now think that our wet fingers become wrinkled so we can grip wet objects more firmly. Since the same wrinkling effect takes place in the toes, these scientists believe, this ability evolved to let our ancestors pick things up (with both hands and feet) in a wet environment.

Studies show that the wrinkles make us 12 percent quicker at picking up wet objects than we would be without the water-induced skinfolds.