Why Your Fingers Wrinkle in Water (It's Not What You Think)

Stay in the bath too long, or finish a big stack of dishes, and your fingertips turn into tiny raisins. You have seen it a thousand times, and you have almost certainly believed the wrong reason for it your whole life. Your skin is not soaking up water. The wrinkling is an active reflex, run by your nervous system, that only fires on your fingers and toes. We cover why a cut nerve switches it off, why the fingertip SHRINKS rather than swells, the leading idea that the wrinkles are rain tread for gripping wet things, and the clinical twist: doctors can use it as a simple check of whether the nerves in a hand are working. My Curious Body explains the strange, ridiculous, brilliant things your body does, with a host who is mildly exasperated to be doing it. Not medical advice, just curiosity grounded in real science. If anything about your hands or nerves worries you, please talk to a doctor. #MyCuriousBody #pruneyfingers #wrinkledfingers #nervoussystem #humanbody #science