What makes a human wrinkle when they are in the bath for to long

Question: What makes a human wrinkle when they are in the bath for to long
- Keywords:
  water
Asked by ewantheepic to Alan, Damian, Emma, Liam, Luca on 18 Jun 2013.
- Liam Bagley answered on 18 Jun 2013:
  
  Hi ewantheepic!
  I had to actually look this up and realised I was going to give you the wrong answer! So I’ve learnt something today too!
  Our skin is made up of layers, and the epidermis layer at the top has a lot of a protein called Keratin, which is hydrophillic (it loves water!). The Keratin in the top layer of your skin soaks up the water, making your outer layer of skin “bigger” essentially. The layer underneath that however does not get bigger, and stays the same size.
  So, the underneath layer has kind of “baggy” skin around it because its absorbed all the water into the keratin, giving the appearance of wrinkles because the outside layer is bigger and “crumples” to meet the inside layer of skin!
  If any other scientist can explain it better, please go for it!
  Liam

Claire commented on 20 Jun 2013:

There was an article in January this year when they realised for the first time *why* this happens, too.

It turns out that having wrinkly fingers and toes actually gives you better grip on wet things. It’s also not just a passive reaction – your body’s nervous system controls it, which indicates that this is some sort of evolutionary response. Cool, right?

http://www.nature.com/news/science-gets-a-grip-on-wrinkly-fingers-1.12175

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- ewantheepic commented on 24 Jun 2013:
  
  Thank you for your advice so it seems we adapt to the environment of our baths so we can pick up things in the bath.
  
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kimstar910 commented on 21 Jun 2013:

Wow how do you know so much

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Question: What makes a human wrinkle when they are in the bath for to long