To tell you when to get out of the bath, according to my mom. But that's not good enough for science!
Kyriacos Kareklas and Tom Smulders of Newcastle University in England noted that the wrinkling of skin is actually controlled by the nervous system. Cut the nerve and the skin of your fingertips actually won't wrinkle. So, there must be a function to the wrinkle, right?
So the two decided to do the experiment and discovered that wrinkled fingers help improve the handling of wet objects:
Hit Play or go to Link [YouTube] | The report over at Biology Letters - via Science, Space and Robots
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I learned something interesting today! Thanks Landon!
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Holy crude, this goes hand in hand with the aquatic apes theory. For those that don't know TED Talks, there was a speaker named Elaine Morgan who theorizes that homo sapiens didn't evolve from grasslands apes, rather aquatic apes living by the seas. Very convincing theory AND it would go hand in hand with this wrinkle research!
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I'm blaming my forehead furrows on pondering the answer to your question, Kevin.
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Scuba divers know that the head accounts for over 25% of heat loss, but faces don't wrinkle in water. (Faces DO wrinkle from age. Do old peoples faces need more grip?)
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I think that heat loss through fingertips is also negligible compared to heat loss from larger parts of the body.
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