Thursday, January 10, 2013

The Secret of Wrinkly Fingers!


Article: Wrinkly Fingers are Evolutionary Superpower!
Author: Sourcefed.
Link: Here
Published: 1/9/13.

This video covers the reason behind your skin wrinkling upon becoming wet. The reason is that when your fingers becoming wet, blood vessels contract and pull the skin along with it, leaving a wrinkled finger. The body has actually evolved for this to happen. The reason is that wrinkly hands allow us to better grip things when we’re wet. This allowed gathering and hunting in bodies water more practical, providing more food and resources, thus giving a survival benefit. Natural selection caused for it to be a trait of humans. Also, when on slippery surfaces, we run better with wrinkled feet, so our feet do the same.

This relates to our science class this term because it relates to the process of natural selection and how traits that give a survival benefit pass on, such as how being able to grip things and move better in water due to wrinkling provides humans an advantage, and therefore it is passed on throughout the human species.

2 comments:

  1. Does this trait imply that humans were adapted to "live" in a water habitat at one point in time?

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  2. Was this trait originally acquired from an evolutionary ancestor or as a mutation?

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