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Short Stuff: Pruney Skin · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and Chuck's
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: here and Jerry's sitting in for Daves, and that makes
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: this a short. Do you want to take it from here?
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: Sure? I had this idea because of a story I'm
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: going to very quickly tell that may make people think
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm a terrible parent. But my daughter the other day
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: was in the bathtub for seven plus hours.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: What what'd she do? And does she read or play
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: video games or.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: She's always like long baths. She just kicks it and
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: plays with her little action figures, her cuckoos, and she's
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: always just done voices and little made up worlds and
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: just sometimes it's music. Sometimes it's her favorite podcast, story Pirates.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: But the other day she got in early in the morning.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: It was a Saturday. She didn't eney anything going on,
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: and she just stayed and stayed, And then I think
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: was playing it up because I kept going in there
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: every hour and saying a new household record, and then
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: I would say the time, and she just thought it
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: was hysterical. So she came out. I'm going to text
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: you actually right now the picture of her hand, okay,
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: And I've never seen anything like it, and it made
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: me think, like, you know what, I don't even really
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: know why people's hands and feet prune up anyway, and
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: that's where this was born.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: What a fantastic story, What a great origin story for this.
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: Do you have your phone?
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: I do? Lay it on me all right?
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: I sent it to you. It's incredible. You know, I'll
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: post this on my Instagram Chuck the podcaster when this
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: comes out, because people should see. God, isn't that amazing?
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: Wow? She looks like Benjamin Button after he was first born.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really something that is amazing.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: I'll bet you were like, how does this happen?
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: Well, the first thing I looked up was like, have
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: I done something really wrong? It's this danger and it
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: is not. You can sit in the water like that
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: and it's all fine and good and your handsle and
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: feet will go back to normal soon enough.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: That's awesome. I've done something wrong. Yes, it's gonna be
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: like that forever. So okay, there's a great question. This
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: is a tailor made short stuff, Chuck, Like, what makes
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: your skin prune up when it's submerged in the water.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: And it's not just any part of your skin, it's
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: specifically your hands and your feet, and in particular your
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: fingertips and toes that really get pruney at least first.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: And the answer is, we're not one hundred percent sure
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: why that happens. There's some good guesses, but science seems
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: to have gotten to the bottom of how it happens.
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was for a long time, I think, up
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: until like the early twentieth century, science basically thought it
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: was osmosis. So you know, the movement of water from
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: one place to another, in this case from the outer
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: layers the drier outer layers of the skin retreats essentially,
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: and so your skin and hands are expands that surface
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: area and it just gets wrinkly. But then they were like,
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: wait a minute, that's not the case.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: No, because somebody figured out in the nineteen thirties that
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: if you have nerve damage on your fingertips, you can
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: soak and palm olive till the cows come home and
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: you're not going to get pruny fingers. So like, that
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: doesn't make any sense, Like if it's just osmosis, like
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: it should happen to anybody with skin in water, that's
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: just how that works. So they're like, since it's nerve damage,
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: that makes us think that there's some sort of maybe
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: autonomic nervous system control going on, And it turns out
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: that's exactly what it is. And the original scientists who
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: thought that it was it wrinkled from your skin puffing up.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: We're kind of looking at it backwards, and it turns
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: out your skin is actually shrinking it when it gets
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: all pruney from being in the water.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's vaso constriction. So your blood vessels under the
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: epidermis are shrinking, and it's just a response to water.
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: When you put something in water for your skin that
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: is in water too long, the nervous system is going
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: to restrict that blood flow automatically. It's a pro like
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: you said, the autonomic system which controls perspiration and breathing
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: and the things we don't need to think about, and
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: this is just another one. You lose that volume in
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: each little fingertip and they shrink inward and it looks pruney.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so rather than puffing out paying attention to those ridges,
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: you wanted to look at the valleys. That's the key
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: the valley.
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: The science finally figure that out, and apparently they've known
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: it for decades. I didn't know what it was until
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: just now. So thanks for that, and I say we
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: take a break because it's kind of like the wild
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: Wild West, just a total free frawll in explaining why
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: that happens. So check. There's a bunch of different theories
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: about why our fingers proved, because if you think about
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: it, it doesn't really make sense if it's not osmosis and
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: it's just like a passive response to being in water.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: But our actual nervous system is doing this. Why is
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: there an evolutionary advantage to it? Because think about it,
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: it takes energy to do that, and over time that
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: would suggest that natural selection selected for that trait in humans.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: And it turns out, yeah, that's right.
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: Weirdly, and this is the theory that I think a
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: lot of scientists have gotten behind and they say they've
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: I'm not sure if they can say they've really really
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: proved it, but they have done some studies that sort
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: of indicate that it may be true. But there was
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: a guy in twenty eleven named Mark Changeeze, and Mark
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: Changheze said, hey, I got a little theory on why
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: skin prunes if you want to hear it. Actually he
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: was an evolutionary neurobiologist, so he probably didn't talk like that,
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: but he was in Boise, Idaho, and he and his
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: colleague said, what we think is going on is that
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: it is an evolutionary adaptation that is a benefit to us,
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: and that is it makes us able to grip things
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: better when our hands or the thing or both are wet.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: Right, And everybody else went prove it, and some other
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: people did. I think a UK group from New Kestle
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: Diversity actually took that theory and put it to the test,
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: and they found out that if you pick up wet
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: or dry objects, marbles specifically of varying sizes, if your
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: fingers are pruney, you are twelve percent faster at picking
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: up wet marbles than somebody whose fingers aren't pruney or
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: just plump and dry like normal. Yeah, that's significant, that's
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: a that's a big difference, twelve percent faster. I tried
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: to give an example or figure out an example. I can't,
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: but just accept that that's actually a pretty pretty it's
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: a reasonable difference that suggests like, no, there's an actual
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: like ad this is an adaptation, right, And the way
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: that it's kind of described is that like our fingers
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: turned into tire tread in wet conditions. Almost.
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a perfect way to describe it. The way
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: that one of the biologists at Newcastle explained it is
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: completely incorrect, which bothers me. Yeah, because he said, we've
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: shown that they give better grip and wet conditions. True,
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: it could be working like treads on your car tires. True,
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: This is the part that's not right, he says, which
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: allows more of the tire to be in contact with
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: the road and gives you a better grip. Not true
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: at all, because while he may know a lot about
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: brain stuff, this guy didn't know nothing about car racing.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: No, he just knows he likes to riding cars.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because you know, race cars have slicks on them
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: because you have one hundred percent contact with the road
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: and much better grip. Treads actually give you less grip.
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: The reason you have treads is to so the water
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: spills on a wet road spills between the treads like
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: a little valley, and that's the same thing that's happening here.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, channels water through it. So that Yeah, so you
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: actually do have less contact but better traction.
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So aside from that, I think like standing ovation
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: for me on this theory and proving it with a
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: game of marbles.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: I cannot agree with you on that.
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, what do you think, buddy?
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: I have a question, That's what I think. I have
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: a question.
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: Uh huh?
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  Speaker 1: Does it have to have a function? Can it just
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: be a consequence of the fact that we have evolved
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: to send our hot blood toward the core when we're
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: submerged in water to keep us alive, to keep the
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: important bits alive, which means that the blood flows away
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: from our extremities, like our fingertips, and because of that,
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: our fingertips just kind of shrink, like they're saying, like
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: it's vasco constriction. Does it Does it have to have
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: a reason evolutionarily or can it just be a consequence
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: of that a byproduct that doesn't make any sense, or
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: it just so happens it gives us better grip, or
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: we have better grip when our fingers are crooney?
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, is that a question you could ask
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: about any evolutionary advantage is like did that just happen
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: and it was coincidence that it turned out to be
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: good for our survival?
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: No? Because I mean, let's say flying flight and burn right.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: Even if that did just happen to evolve as an
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: accident or a consequence of something else, which I don't
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: think it did. It was so quickly and so thoroughly
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: selected that they think that flight occurred. It like evolves
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: separately in different areas of the world at different times.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: It's just that it's just that advantageous. This is not
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: particularly advantageous, and it's possible humans are just reading more
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: deeply into something. I know, you know what I was saying.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: I'm essentially just restating my case here.
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: I would argue that it is, and they argue that
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: it is advantageous because Tuktook in the rain is able
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: to gather more twelve percent more in fact wet berries
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: then he would have had he not had that wrinkled skin,
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: and also potentially better attraction on slippy rock surfaces with
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: those pruny toes, and so TikTok isn't falling and hitting
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: his little head.
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: Okay, it's mister smart guy. Why if it's just so
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: advantageous to have, why aren't our fingers puney all the time? Yeah?
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: Well, I know you're being coy because I have no idea.
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: But they did ask those scientists that same question, and
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: they said that it's not too clear, but their initial
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: thought was here's the quote. Our initial thoughts are that
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: this is that this could diminish the sensitivity in our
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: fingertips or could increase the risk of damage through catching
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: on objects. So skin goes back to smooth fingertips when
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: it's not needed, because that, you know, isn't so great
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: to have full time.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: Okay, that's a reasonable explanation to that one. Yeah, so
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: I guess well, I'm not going to say that the
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: case is subtled because I just don't agree.
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: Hey man, I respect your opinion, and you know what,
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: I don't really have one one way or the other.
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: I just think it's interesting.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: All right, that's great. Well everybody chucks that, hey man,
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: which means short stuff is that.
• 11:57
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