If you’ve stayed in a bath or pool long enough, you’ve likely noticed your skin, especially your fingers, become wrinkly or pruny. This is caused by your blood vessels contracting. When blood vessels narrow, the skin’s area is reduced, and your skin forms wrinkles. While your pruny fingers may seem off-putting, this evolutionary advantage actually helps you grip things easier underwater, compared to non-pruny hands.
However, as your fingers wrinkle underwater, do they always wrinkle in the same pattern? That was the question on one young student’s mind. And their question inspired a new study, published in the Journal of the Mechanical Behavior of Biomedical Materials.
Images of topographical skin wrinkles overlaid on each other from the two different time points, 24 h apart, with opacity levels of (A) 0%, (B) 50%, (C) 100%. (Image Credit: Guy German)
Guy German
Guy German, an associate professor at Binghamton University and a ...
