Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and Chuck's
Speaker 1: here and Jerry's sitting in for Daves, and that makes
Speaker 1: this a short. Do you want to take it from here?
Speaker 2: Sure? I had this idea because of a story I'm
Speaker 2: going to very quickly tell that may make people think
Speaker 2: I'm a terrible parent. But my daughter the other day
Speaker 2: was in the bathtub for seven plus hours.
Speaker 1: What what'd she do? And does she read or play
Speaker 1: video games or.
Speaker 2: She's always like long baths. She just kicks it and
Speaker 2: plays with her little action figures, her cuckoos, and she's
Speaker 2: always just done voices and little made up worlds and
Speaker 2: just sometimes it's music. Sometimes it's her favorite podcast, story Pirates.
Speaker 2: But the other day she got in early in the morning.
Speaker 2: It was a Saturday. She didn't eney anything going on,
Speaker 2: and she just stayed and stayed, And then I think
Speaker 2: was playing it up because I kept going in there
Speaker 2: every hour and saying a new household record, and then
Speaker 2: I would say the time, and she just thought it
Speaker 2: was hysterical. So she came out. I'm going to text
Speaker 2: you actually right now the picture of her hand, okay,
Speaker 2: And I've never seen anything like it, and it made
Speaker 2: me think, like, you know what, I don't even really
Speaker 2: know why people's hands and feet prune up anyway, and
Speaker 2: that's where this was born.
Speaker 1: What a fantastic story, What a great origin story for this.
Speaker 2: Do you have your phone?
Speaker 1: I do? Lay it on me all right?
Speaker 2: I sent it to you. It's incredible. You know, I'll
Speaker 2: post this on my Instagram Chuck the podcaster when this
Speaker 2: comes out, because people should see. God, isn't that amazing?
Speaker 1: Wow? She looks like Benjamin Button after he was first born.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really something that is amazing.
Speaker 1: I'll bet you were like, how does this happen?
Speaker 2: Well, the first thing I looked up was like, have
Speaker 2: I done something really wrong? It's this danger and it
Speaker 2: is not. You can sit in the water like that
Speaker 2: and it's all fine and good and your handsle and
Speaker 2: feet will go back to normal soon enough.
Speaker 1: That's awesome. I've done something wrong. Yes, it's gonna be
Speaker 1: like that forever. So okay, there's a great question. This
Speaker 1: is a tailor made short stuff, Chuck, Like, what makes
Speaker 1: your skin prune up when it's submerged in the water.
Speaker 1: And it's not just any part of your skin, it's
Speaker 1: specifically your hands and your feet, and in particular your
Speaker 1: fingertips and toes that really get pruney at least first.
Speaker 1: And the answer is, we're not one hundred percent sure
Speaker 1: why that happens. There's some good guesses, but science seems
Speaker 1: to have gotten to the bottom of how it happens.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was for a long time, I think, up
Speaker 2: until like the early twentieth century, science basically thought it
Speaker 2: was osmosis. So you know, the movement of water from
Speaker 2: one place to another, in this case from the outer
Speaker 2: layers the drier outer layers of the skin retreats essentially,
Speaker 2: and so your skin and hands are expands that surface
Speaker 2: area and it just gets wrinkly. But then they were like,
Speaker 2: wait a minute, that's not the case.
Speaker 1: No, because somebody figured out in the nineteen thirties that
Speaker 1: if you have nerve damage on your fingertips, you can
Speaker 1: soak and palm olive till the cows come home and
Speaker 1: you're not going to get pruny fingers. So like, that
Speaker 1: doesn't make any sense, Like if it's just osmosis, like
Speaker 1: it should happen to anybody with skin in water, that's
Speaker 1: just how that works. So they're like, since it's nerve damage,
Speaker 1: that makes us think that there's some sort of maybe
Speaker 1: autonomic nervous system control going on, And it turns out
Speaker 1: that's exactly what it is. And the original scientists who
Speaker 1: thought that it was it wrinkled from your skin puffing up.
Speaker 1: We're kind of looking at it backwards, and it turns
Speaker 1: out your skin is actually shrinking it when it gets
Speaker 1: all pruney from being in the water.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's vaso constriction. So your blood vessels under the
Speaker 2: epidermis are shrinking, and it's just a response to water.
Speaker 2: When you put something in water for your skin that
Speaker 2: is in water too long, the nervous system is going
Speaker 2: to restrict that blood flow automatically. It's a pro like
Speaker 2: you said, the autonomic system which controls perspiration and breathing
Speaker 2: and the things we don't need to think about, and
Speaker 2: this is just another one. You lose that volume in
Speaker 2: each little fingertip and they shrink inward and it looks pruney.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so rather than puffing out paying attention to those ridges,
Speaker 1: you wanted to look at the valleys. That's the key
Speaker 1: the valley.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The science finally figure that out, and apparently they've known
Speaker 1: it for decades. I didn't know what it was until
Speaker 1: just now. So thanks for that, and I say we
Speaker 1: take a break because it's kind of like the wild
Speaker 1: Wild West, just a total free frawll in explaining why
Speaker 1: that happens. So check. There's a bunch of different theories
Speaker 1: about why our fingers proved, because if you think about
Speaker 1: it, it doesn't really make sense if it's not osmosis and
Speaker 1: it's just like a passive response to being in water.
Speaker 1: But our actual nervous system is doing this. Why is
Speaker 1: there an evolutionary advantage to it? Because think about it,
Speaker 1: it takes energy to do that, and over time that
Speaker 1: would suggest that natural selection selected for that trait in humans.
Speaker 1: And it turns out, yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2: Weirdly, and this is the theory that I think a
Speaker 2: lot of scientists have gotten behind and they say they've
Speaker 2: I'm not sure if they can say they've really really
Speaker 2: proved it, but they have done some studies that sort
Speaker 2: of indicate that it may be true. But there was
Speaker 2: a guy in twenty eleven named Mark Changeeze, and Mark
Speaker 2: Changheze said, hey, I got a little theory on why
Speaker 2: skin prunes if you want to hear it. Actually he
Speaker 2: was an evolutionary neurobiologist, so he probably didn't talk like that,
Speaker 2: but he was in Boise, Idaho, and he and his
Speaker 2: colleague said, what we think is going on is that
Speaker 2: it is an evolutionary adaptation that is a benefit to us,
Speaker 2: and that is it makes us able to grip things
Speaker 2: better when our hands or the thing or both are wet.
Speaker 1: Right, And everybody else went prove it, and some other
Speaker 1: people did. I think a UK group from New Kestle
Speaker 1: Diversity actually took that theory and put it to the test,
Speaker 1: and they found out that if you pick up wet
Speaker 1: or dry objects, marbles specifically of varying sizes, if your
Speaker 1: fingers are pruney, you are twelve percent faster at picking
Speaker 1: up wet marbles than somebody whose fingers aren't pruney or
Speaker 1: just plump and dry like normal. Yeah, that's significant, that's
Speaker 1: a that's a big difference, twelve percent faster. I tried
Speaker 1: to give an example or figure out an example. I can't,
Speaker 1: but just accept that that's actually a pretty pretty it's
Speaker 1: a reasonable difference that suggests like, no, there's an actual
Speaker 1: like ad this is an adaptation, right, And the way
Speaker 1: that it's kind of described is that like our fingers
Speaker 1: turned into tire tread in wet conditions. Almost.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a perfect way to describe it. The way
Speaker 2: that one of the biologists at Newcastle explained it is
Speaker 2: completely incorrect, which bothers me. Yeah, because he said, we've
Speaker 2: shown that they give better grip and wet conditions. True,
Speaker 2: it could be working like treads on your car tires. True,
Speaker 2: This is the part that's not right, he says, which
Speaker 2: allows more of the tire to be in contact with
Speaker 2: the road and gives you a better grip. Not true
Speaker 2: at all, because while he may know a lot about
Speaker 2: brain stuff, this guy didn't know nothing about car racing.
Speaker 1: No, he just knows he likes to riding cars.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because you know, race cars have slicks on them
Speaker 2: because you have one hundred percent contact with the road
Speaker 2: and much better grip. Treads actually give you less grip.
Speaker 2: The reason you have treads is to so the water
Speaker 2: spills on a wet road spills between the treads like
Speaker 2: a little valley, and that's the same thing that's happening here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, channels water through it. So that Yeah, so you
Speaker 1: actually do have less contact but better traction.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So aside from that, I think like standing ovation
Speaker 2: for me on this theory and proving it with a
Speaker 2: game of marbles.
Speaker 1: I cannot agree with you on that.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, what do you think, buddy?
Speaker 1: I have a question, That's what I think. I have
Speaker 1: a question.
Speaker 2: Uh huh?
Speaker 1: Does it have to have a function? Can it just
Speaker 1: be a consequence of the fact that we have evolved
Speaker 1: to send our hot blood toward the core when we're
Speaker 1: submerged in water to keep us alive, to keep the
Speaker 1: important bits alive, which means that the blood flows away
Speaker 1: from our extremities, like our fingertips, and because of that,
Speaker 1: our fingertips just kind of shrink, like they're saying, like
Speaker 1: it's vasco constriction. Does it Does it have to have
Speaker 1: a reason evolutionarily or can it just be a consequence
Speaker 1: of that a byproduct that doesn't make any sense, or
Speaker 1: it just so happens it gives us better grip, or
Speaker 1: we have better grip when our fingers are crooney?
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, is that a question you could ask
Speaker 2: about any evolutionary advantage is like did that just happen
Speaker 2: and it was coincidence that it turned out to be
Speaker 2: good for our survival?
Speaker 1: No? Because I mean, let's say flying flight and burn right.
Speaker 1: Even if that did just happen to evolve as an
Speaker 1: accident or a consequence of something else, which I don't
Speaker 1: think it did. It was so quickly and so thoroughly
Speaker 1: selected that they think that flight occurred. It like evolves
Speaker 1: separately in different areas of the world at different times.
Speaker 1: It's just that it's just that advantageous. This is not
Speaker 1: particularly advantageous, and it's possible humans are just reading more
Speaker 1: deeply into something. I know, you know what I was saying.
Speaker 1: I'm essentially just restating my case here.
Speaker 2: I would argue that it is, and they argue that
Speaker 2: it is advantageous because Tuktook in the rain is able
Speaker 2: to gather more twelve percent more in fact wet berries
Speaker 2: then he would have had he not had that wrinkled skin,
Speaker 2: and also potentially better attraction on slippy rock surfaces with
Speaker 2: those pruny toes, and so TikTok isn't falling and hitting
Speaker 2: his little head.
Speaker 1: Okay, it's mister smart guy. Why if it's just so
Speaker 1: advantageous to have, why aren't our fingers puney all the time? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Well, I know you're being coy because I have no idea.
Speaker 2: But they did ask those scientists that same question, and
Speaker 2: they said that it's not too clear, but their initial
Speaker 2: thought was here's the quote. Our initial thoughts are that
Speaker 2: this is that this could diminish the sensitivity in our
Speaker 2: fingertips or could increase the risk of damage through catching
Speaker 2: on objects. So skin goes back to smooth fingertips when
Speaker 2: it's not needed, because that, you know, isn't so great
Speaker 2: to have full time.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's a reasonable explanation to that one. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: I guess well, I'm not going to say that the
Speaker 1: case is subtled because I just don't agree.
Speaker 2: Hey man, I respect your opinion, and you know what,
Speaker 2: I don't really have one one way or the other.
Speaker 2: I just think it's interesting.
Speaker 1: All right, that's great. Well everybody chucks that, hey man,
Speaker 1: which means short stuff is that.
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