“A student asked, ‘Yeah, but do the wrinkles always form in the same way?’ And I thought: I haven’t the foggiest clue!” said German, a faculty member at the Thomas J. Watson College of Engineering and Applied Science’s Department of Biomedical Engineering. “So it led to this research to find out.”
I wish the authors would have mentioned the kid by name in the acknowledgement section of the paper. I bet the kid would have felt very proud and inspired to having their name published in a scientific journal.
That makes me wonder how many important results actually came from inquiries from curious students whose name was forgotten or purposefully ommited, lost from history. Any other similar examples? Student from Student's t-distribution was actually an engineer that had to adopt a pseudonym because of his employer, so I think it doesn't count.
It's probably an evolutionary adaptation to give us better grip in the water. People with nerve damage who can't feel their fingers also don't get pruny fingers, so there's clearly a "get pruny" signal coming from the brain or at least higher up in the nervous system.
Most biometrics aren't easily hidden from your environment, everyone's constantly leaving fingerprints and handprints all over everything, shedding skin cells and other DNA material, face and irises can be easily photographed.
So it's kind of cool that a theoretical biometric could be stable over time and not easily leaked, that could take time to produce. Like some sort of cold storage biometric in the far future once certain biometrics become less useful after they're too easily lifted and replicated with new technology. Sort of like deprecating obsolete cryptographic protocols once they're too easily broken.
There should definitely be a scene in the next James Bond film where he rocks up to a top government facility and the guard hands him a terrycloth robe and directs him to an ultra sleek bathing cubicle
multiple times DNA got transferred between totally unknown people and wrong person got convicted... so more biometrics better.
obsolete cryptographic protocols are many times used as a fallback. some application gets response from malicious actor about not supporting such new crypto, so server falls back to older cipher.. lets say some 100s billion dollar companies use systems which behave like this still in 2025...
A kids ask a question, science is getting done, we have answer to the question. Unless there was obvious yes or no before the science was done it is not ignoble worthy.
I often wondered how long we can stay in water before it becomes harmful. I used to imagine what might happen if I stayed submerged for hours. It wasn’t until later that I found out the skin wrinkling effect is actually caused by the nervous system reacting to prolonged exposure to water, which is believed to help improve grip.
But how long is too long? Prolonged immersion can lead to skin damage or dehydration, and the risk depends on water temperature and the individual’s condition. It’s fascinating how much our bodies can adapt, but it also reminds me how important it is to listen to our bodies and not push limits.
Does each body have a different tolerance to water immersion? Can we train our bodies to withstand longer periods, or is there a limit to what our skin can handle?
I am reminded of a theory years ago that fingers wrinkling in water might have an evolutionary function, specifically to improve our grip when wet (or in water).
The wrinkly formation lets water drain better (like treads of a tire).
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do you really have better gripe with wrinkled fingers underwater?
So it's kind of cool that a theoretical biometric could be stable over time and not easily leaked, that could take time to produce. Like some sort of cold storage biometric in the far future once certain biometrics become less useful after they're too easily lifted and replicated with new technology. Sort of like deprecating obsolete cryptographic protocols once they're too easily broken.
obsolete cryptographic protocols are many times used as a fallback. some application gets response from malicious actor about not supporting such new crypto, so server falls back to older cipher.. lets say some 100s billion dollar companies use systems which behave like this still in 2025...
Interesting idea though. Tracking biometrics through slow reproducible processes.
But how long is too long? Prolonged immersion can lead to skin damage or dehydration, and the risk depends on water temperature and the individual’s condition. It’s fascinating how much our bodies can adapt, but it also reminds me how important it is to listen to our bodies and not push limits.
Does each body have a different tolerance to water immersion? Can we train our bodies to withstand longer periods, or is there a limit to what our skin can handle?
The wrinkly formation lets water drain better (like treads of a tire).