Trivia Junction

A Compendium of trivia I find interesting
...for the curious

What causes skin to get wrinkled like a prune when a person is in a pool or a bath?

We get wrinkly fingers and toes when water soaks into the outer layer of skin, the stratum corneum (Latin for “horny layer”).

The stratum corneum plays a protective role and is thickest on the palms of the hands and the soles of the feet. It consists of stacks of dead, flattened cells that contain a tough protein called keratin.

When we dilly-dally in the tub, these dead cells absorb water and swell. Rather than just getting puffy, the stratum corneum gets prune like because it is firmly attached to the living skin beneath. Its surface area increases, but the surface area of the living skin stays the same. As a result, the stratum corneum buckles into a series of little ridges and valleys to accommodate its new surface area.

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