Last summer, I was first introduced to the radio show Science Friday while at work; the guy I work with and I were at one of the satellite campuses, but he had to do some troubleshooting in an area I don't have clearance for, so I stayed in the van. We listen to NPR almost all the time while out on deliveries, but we hadn't been in the van on Fridays around 2 yet, so I had the fortune of listening to this wonderful show, and what was even better was that he had to do a lot of troubleshooting so I got to listen to the entire show.
At any rate, that particular episode included a segment on why our hands wrinkle when they're wet. It's a universal sign that you've been in the tub or the pool too long, but for the longest time, no one could figure out what the mechanism was or why it was happening. The idea after the 2012 study was that the wrinkling was caused by vasoconstriction in the fingertips: upon extended contact with water, the pressure differential caused by the shrinking blood vessels created a vacuum of sorts that sucked the skin in. This was thought to be an adaptation for increased grip while wet.
Unfortunately, another similar study conducted last year proved inconclusive. Rather than just testing marbles like the first study, the second utilized many different materials in grip tests and showed that pruny fingers didn't affect the participants' grips.
Of course, this either calls for a third study to settle the score or avoiding wet situations when you need to grab onto something...
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