This week on Let's Talk About It Tuesday's, CODE313 is bringing some new knowledge to our blog readers on the various topics of Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math. This weeks blog is focusing on the science behind why our fingers get so wrinkly after being in the water for an extended period of time. Let's dive into it!

Our skin does a lot for us, it's the body's biggest organ. Some pretty cool functions of the skin include protecting us from hazardous substances, reduces the harmful effects of UV radiation, helps control the body's temperature, acts a sensory organ, and etc. But what science is behind this common mystery that makes our skin function the way it does when it's in water for a long time? The first thing you need some background knowledge on is the automatic nervous system, which is the involuntary part of how our body works, we basically don't need to consciously control some function apart of the body. Some examples of this include blinking, our eyes dilating, digestion, our hearts beating, and much more like our blood vessels. Our blood vessels automatically expand and contract based on what we eat, drink, the medications we take, and more.

 Now, when our skin has been in the water for a while our blood vessels contract, which causes the skin to get wrinkly. The sweat ducts in the skin open up so that the water is allowed to flow into the the skin tissue, this added water ends up decreasing the amount of salt inside the skin, kind of like diluting it. After this happens, nerve fibers send signals to the brain letting it know about the lower salt levels, and then the automatic nervous system responds by constricting the blood vessels. The narrowing of the blood vessels makes the volume of the skin to reduce and make the skin turn into well defined wrinkle patterns.

To learn more about about this cool feature our skin does, and also how having these distinct wrinkles can be very helpful underwater, click the button below!