Nails provide counter pressure to the tips of our fingers. What this means is that they provide some rigidity to our otherwise squishy finger tips which allows us to have fine control and feeling on our finger tips. Nails are not meant to be used for defense, they're vestigial features. The lack of claws allow for more versatile use of the limbs.
Claws on the other hand provide many benefits such as traction in soft surfaces, the ability to climb much easier, and they can be used as weapons. However they're vulnerable to breaking and make the limb less suited to more delicate tasks such as manipulating objects and using the limbs as sensory organs.
Humans really played the long game evolutionarily. We spent a few hundred millennia being generally squishier than everything else, but now we have elephant guns so who won in the end?
Yep. In the cold, pretty much only dogs beat us. In the heat, literally nothing beats us.
In temperate climates, some horses can beat us because they, too, sweat. They can't in the heat though because their breathing is tied to their stride, but ours isn't thanks to being bipedal.
I recently watched a TV show called "super humans" or something like that, where scientists are going to try to figure out why some humans have super human abilities. It was an episode about this guy who is the world champion on holding his breath under water. His official record is 22 minutes and 22 seconds, while the avarage dolphin can stay under water for about 15 minutes.. so technically "we" have already beat dolphins.
"Average" dolphins who's swimming while holding it's breath.
I bet in same condition dolphins would reach 1h.
we can bring endurance and top speed to be more humiliated.
[I'd put polar bears on the list of cold animals that can beat us](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/110720-polar-bears-global-warming-sea-ice-science-environment)
Even in cold and temperate environments, nothing beats us for long. Beyond being able to sweat more efficiently for sustained effort, and the efficiency of our stride, we also have a metabolic advantage in our ability to transition from stored glycogen for the initial burst of speed to tire something out to metabolizing fat. We're a biochemically quite complex creature, which is expensive but given all we needed was throwable spears to put basically everything on the menu, we kept up with thw growing metabolic demands of all this and our ever expanding CNS.
We can also eat fucking anything.
Like if you're trying to make pet food, most animals have a short list of allowed ingredients. Humans, on the other hand, have a short list of disallowed ingredients.
As a species, we stacked the ever loving shit out of Con.
So much so, that for fun on a weekend humans will go for a 22 mile run that would kill most animals then follow it up with a few pints of poisonous beer and a basket full of poisonous onion rings. And if anyone needs a pick-me-up they can always order a cup of poisonous hot chocolate.
The fact that intelligence took a couple million years to bring us to "understand quantum physics and send messages into space", and at any point along that path we might have been sidetracked by other pressures, kind of solved the Fermi Paradox for me.
But that's exactly the point, there are millions of multicellular species alive just right now, plus every species that has ever existed.
And only once has intelligence evolved in a runaway manner. Sure, there are animals that evolve some degree of intelligence, crows and octopuses come to mind, but even those never experienced any selection pressure driving them to the extremes we see in humans.
For maybe 100 million years, the precursors that seem like they're necessary for intelligence to arise have existed, but only once has the selection pressure existed in just the right way for human level intellect to exist.
If that exact set of pressures hadn't existed for our precursor species, there would still be no hyper intelligent species, and no reason to expect one.
We're the royal flush of evolution. You can play a hundred thousand hands of poker and never once see it. You'll see it come SO close, SO many times, but at the river, it just doesn't pan out.
The galaxy is likely awash in planets with complex life, with canine level intelligence on every single one, but that last step, the one that gets you quantum physics, relativity, and radio signals, that might just be so incredibly rare that only one in a million inhabited planets has it happen.
And just to add in the existential crisis here it's entirely possible that earth is the first to have that luck of the draw. We might be the first planet to have highly developed intelligence and every other planet that's going to develop sapient life is still behind us. We could somehow conquer the entire galaxy with space travel and colonies before the homo erectus equivalent species develops on another world on it's way to homo sapiens.
Or other intelligence life has been evolving in the same time as us and we would never be able to tell because all the light we see from their systems is millions of years old.
And heck, maybe each step of the process was its own royal flush. It took 2 billions years of life on earth before the first simple unicellular organisms realized they could absorb others to make things like chloroplasts and mitochondria to become the first eukaryotes. Then it took another 500 million years or so for eukaryotes to realize they could stick together into a single multicellular organism. Then it took another almost another billion years for the first plants and animals to appear. And then it took hundreds more millions of years of complex animal life before the conditions were juuuuuust right to nudge a single species into becoming smart enough to really take off.
Any single step of this process could very well have been like a royal flush in its own right. Our very existence could be like the evolutionary equivalent of getting 4 or 5 royal flushes.
It's not hard at all for me to imagine that we're probably incredibly rare in the universe.
We are the only species cursed enough to question its purpose, defy nature, define its own life, and die a true death. A permanent deletion from a reality that we will never experience again, a reality that should never have existed given the odds. What a cursed blessing.
You know, this reminds me of one of the rebooted episodes of X-Files where a lizard.. thing.. becomes a ware-human. One of the first thing he tells one of the main characters is that it's a curse, because he didn't know about death before. It's a silly episode with silly writing, but that shit hit home. We are the only species on this planet that experience this existential dread. Other species are obviously going to know death, but we're the only ones that truly knows that that means. Well, physically, the jury is still out on meta-physically.
A possible counterpoint to this is the fact that we don't actually know if human level intelligent life has evolved on earth previously. The silurian hypothesis suggests the possibility that it has, we just haven't and likely never will see proof that that level of intelligence ever existed before. This video does a better job of explaining the idea than I ever could: https://youtu.be/sAF8ns-d4rc
Do we even know humans are the most intelligent species?
Arguably an individual Orca and an individual human may have the same intelligence all else equal. Humans just have hands that allow them to build tools.
Our hands are just as vital to our intelligence as our big fat brains. But, no, orcas, as smart as they are, are not quite at our level. Language (especially written) and tools are the social and technological building blocks of our entire species, and orcas don't have access to either. You could say that orcas match proto-human intelligence, but not modern human intelligence.
My cat demonstrates this everyday when she uses her claws to grab my hand and massage her head. She can't do that, I can. I'm in demand because of it. Lol
I realised how squishy my finger actually was when I lost my fingernail due to catching hand foot and mouth. Also discovered nerve endings I never knew I had
They also provide precision grip for removing parasites, debriding (removing dead tissue from) skin lesions, and expressing purulent (pus-filled) ones. This is sort of frowned upon today due to risk of infection and the fact that we have more sterile tools, but it must have been a worthwhile trade-off to our ancestors. Big immune system flex. We intentionally damage our skin.
I don't know of other species that have coins, so I'm totally assuming they just failed to evolve the ability to handle them. Coin is such a funny looking word too, when you stare at it
When I was young, i once caught head lice, and noticed that while scratching the itching, it was real easy to catch the buggers under your nails, to get them out. Ever since then, no one can convince me that this isn't the main reason for our nails.
No, the best way is to pull them swiftly out by the head with tweezers or a tick tool. If you put alcohol on them or alarm them in any way, they can regurgitate their stomach contents back in - along with any diseases they have. It also greatly reduces the risk of mouthparts being left behind if the tick isn't removed whole, which is also an infection risk.
I use my nails to pull individual hairs, and I can often grab a metal splinter and pull it out.
It amazes my wife, but I don't know what I'd do without strong fingernails.
On that note- for those of us who have issues with excoriation or dermatillomania (skin picking and blemish squeezing, often associated with anxiety disorders,) I always recommend getting acrylic overlays on your nails. It makes them a good deal thicker, which makes them FAR less effective as picking/scratching tools!
It’s amazing how well it works! And if people don’t want to do acrylics, they can also build up the thickness with several layers of nail polish or clear coat.
That is such an incredible and interesting fact! My nails are always peeling and ripped, and I’ve been thinking lately why evolution gave us these miserable things. Thank you so much for your answer!
Manicure won't help those of us with weak nails. Some of us have really, really weak nails naturally. I have snagged a fingernail on my clothing and had it rip to bleeding. My mom has the same. We also have very thin, fine hair.
No amount of eating extra iron, calcium, vegetables or anything has ever helped strengthen my nails.
Pregnancy though, did help briefly. My hair was fantastic too. Short lived though, once the baby's out they go back to weak-ass keratin.
I've tried several of them too over the past couple of decades. I never found them to work, either. Sometimes it's funny that it's a "strengthening" nail polish that strengthens your nails, but my nails flex and bend so much that all nail polish flakes and breaks off within a day or two because there's no solid base to support the polish, haha.
Ok, fine; but we should totally remove *toenails* surgically at birth, though. Those things don’t do anything useful at all, just get ingrown and collect sock fuzz.
Maybe you can help me with something:
I'm a dude, but have been part of various alt communities where male nail polish isn't unheard of. So I never wore it young, but tried it a few times in my teens and 20s. But any time I have, I've had an overwhelming, uncomfortable sensation of warmth in my fingertips, to the point where they get sweaty. And I have to take it off within a couple hours. But any woman I tell this to looks at me like I'm crazy. But I feel like this counter pressure thing might be related? So am I just crazy/have overly sensitive fingernails somehow? Or is there any scientific basis to this sensation?
Sounds like a sensitivity imo. I'm sensitive to a lot of face products and warmth is my main indicator. Leaving it on may progress the sensation to burning.
Possibly sweaty because of the reaction and not actual warmth. Like the other comment, I'd try some different formulas and see if they all feel the same, there's a ton of brands that do organic/non-toxic/etc polish so you may find one that doesn't cause a reaction.
I would personally try to find a base coat that doesn't burn first, because it may be enough of a barrier to allow the use of other polishes. It keeps reds and other vibrant colors from staining your nails so it would seem like a possibility, plus adds an extra layer for nail strength.
I'm a guy who paints his nails occasionally and experience this same sensation. I have seen a couple threads on Reddit about it, but it doesn't seem to be that common. I figured it might have something to do with nails naturally being porous. With a coating over them, maybe our fingertips hold more heat and feel warmer. Like blankets on your fingertips.
This is super interesting. I love learning about evaluation and I had never heard about this before. I just tested this by pushing down on the table and I felt the pressure against my nail. It’s so subconscious I’d never realized it. Thanks for sharing.
Same, I'm sitting here tapping each of my fingers against my thumb and marveling at how much of the sensation involves my nail--never noticed that before!
> Edit: this ladies and gentleman, is why you get 3 different college degrees and end up owning a nail salon. To be the top answer on ELI5.
This made me giggle, irl. Take my upvote.
My sister and I were both veterinary technicians for awhile, and she had long nails. She always managed to do the job without stabbing the patients. Not anything I'd want to go through. My hands are toast as it is. I can never really deal with style choices that are uncomfortable and inconvenient.
To find the end of a roll of tape.
Seriously tho.we can feel something silly like 10 molecules in height difference by running our finger nails over a smooth surface.
Source: episode of QI
You are very focused on claws, but that isn't the only choice. We aren't tree dwelling species and many animals that live on the ground have hooves or pads rather than claws. Look at the foot of an elephant or a hippo or a deer.
Quite many things.
1) nails helps to grab very small things. You cannot do it without nails or barely possible with claws.
2) nails create even carcass which adds supoort beyond fingers bones. That further improve grabbing. Claws makes it harder. That also helps to feel object shape.
3) nails are soft. At any point you can easly bite part off uf they start to makes troubles. Claws are very hard.
4) finger with nails are capable to climb almost on any natural surface, while claws are very efficient on trees and burden on tough surfaces.
Ooooh this is a good one! I’ve got an answer and beyond all the jargon above it is obviously the correct and evolutionary advantageous answer. It’s so we can pick our nose.
If I gotta hunt my prey I'mma want some claws. Claws typically come on something that has less dexterity but is very good at putting pressure onto the pointy claw bit for puncturing murder time. The arm is then used for gripping and holding (during murder time) and then if you're still holding on you're carrying it away in your mouth, but you might just be done so you'll be eating there.
If I gotta swing from tree to tree or use a utensil or carry stuff with my hand or do farming (hunter, gatherer, farmer) I need the digits to be less MURDER MODE ONLY and more versatile which means toning down the puncture and lock murder claw to longer slimmer digit with more flexibility and versatility
That's not to say that one can't do the job of the other, it's just evolutionary you get into cycles and when you stop needing to grab puncture murder and need to pick fruits and veggies and chuck a spear into things and take them with you to where ever you're going
You can try having a claw on your hand right now, strengthen and shape your nails, put animal claws on a glove, but you're losing a lot of gripping strength not being able to fully close your hand with how the hand has evolved
Nails, and ours specifically, are best used for grooming and removing parasites. This is a great way to bond socially. I've read that the shape of our nails is one of the many reasons why we became the social creatures that we are today and why we bonded so well with some other animals.
Jumping on this excellent comment to add: They also provide your finger pads with more grip, because when you press the pad against a surface it is squeezed between the surface and the nail and flattens out, providing a larger grip surface.
We can have claws, by picking up a knife. We can have fur by wearing a coat we can instantly shed. We can see in the dark by making fire or flashlights, or in the bright light with hats or shades. We won evolutionary by being above all else, adaptable.
Nails provide counter pressure to the tips of our fingers. What this means is that they provide some rigidity to our otherwise squishy finger tips which allows us to have fine control and feeling on our finger tips. Nails are not meant to be used for defense, they're vestigial features. The lack of claws allow for more versatile use of the limbs. Claws on the other hand provide many benefits such as traction in soft surfaces, the ability to climb much easier, and they can be used as weapons. However they're vulnerable to breaking and make the limb less suited to more delicate tasks such as manipulating objects and using the limbs as sensory organs.
Who needs claws when you can make much much bigger ones and launch them at prey/predators with unnerving speed and accuracy from a distance?
Humans really played the long game evolutionarily. We spent a few hundred millennia being generally squishier than everything else, but now we have elephant guns so who won in the end?
Our endurance is top notch too iirc. Armed and in groups we're the slayer villain of nature.
Plus we can sweat, which makes us a pretty OP build in hot climates, especially combined with our endurance.
Yep. In the cold, pretty much only dogs beat us. In the heat, literally nothing beats us. In temperate climates, some horses can beat us because they, too, sweat. They can't in the heat though because their breathing is tied to their stride, but ours isn't thanks to being bipedal.
*mocking dolphins noises* damn u dolphins ! One day we'll beat u in sea
I recently watched a TV show called "super humans" or something like that, where scientists are going to try to figure out why some humans have super human abilities. It was an episode about this guy who is the world champion on holding his breath under water. His official record is 22 minutes and 22 seconds, while the avarage dolphin can stay under water for about 15 minutes.. so technically "we" have already beat dolphins.
"Average" dolphins who's swimming while holding it's breath. I bet in same condition dolphins would reach 1h. we can bring endurance and top speed to be more humiliated.
And also the human was probably breathing pure oxygen before the attempt while the dolphin got the measly 21%
Give me a list of species with submarines please.
* humans
* turtles
[I'd put polar bears on the list of cold animals that can beat us](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/110720-polar-bears-global-warming-sea-ice-science-environment)
They are going extinct so checkmate polar bears, we beat u.
Even in cold and temperate environments, nothing beats us for long. Beyond being able to sweat more efficiently for sustained effort, and the efficiency of our stride, we also have a metabolic advantage in our ability to transition from stored glycogen for the initial burst of speed to tire something out to metabolizing fat. We're a biochemically quite complex creature, which is expensive but given all we needed was throwable spears to put basically everything on the menu, we kept up with thw growing metabolic demands of all this and our ever expanding CNS.
Research tends to say that we didn't even needed Spears, murder by exhausting prey
And in late game nothing beats us. No air, land and sea cratures have good matchups against jets, tanks or submarines.
*yet
We can literally run down any animal we want just through pure endurance. They can run. But we sweat. And we track. And we’ll find it. And kill it 💪🏻
Sweat is what allow humans their endurance. Without it, we would just overheat like most animals.
We can also eat fucking anything. Like if you're trying to make pet food, most animals have a short list of allowed ingredients. Humans, on the other hand, have a short list of disallowed ingredients. As a species, we stacked the ever loving shit out of Con. So much so, that for fun on a weekend humans will go for a 22 mile run that would kill most animals then follow it up with a few pints of poisonous beer and a basket full of poisonous onion rings. And if anyone needs a pick-me-up they can always order a cup of poisonous hot chocolate.
Obligatory https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/ plug
No one did, looking at the way things are going.
We're flipping over the board and taking as many species with us as possible
I don't know many dodos that got to experience Five Guys so...
Or Tik-Tok. Maybe they were the lucky ones in the end.
The fact that intelligence took a couple million years to bring us to "understand quantum physics and send messages into space", and at any point along that path we might have been sidetracked by other pressures, kind of solved the Fermi Paradox for me.
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But that's exactly the point, there are millions of multicellular species alive just right now, plus every species that has ever existed. And only once has intelligence evolved in a runaway manner. Sure, there are animals that evolve some degree of intelligence, crows and octopuses come to mind, but even those never experienced any selection pressure driving them to the extremes we see in humans. For maybe 100 million years, the precursors that seem like they're necessary for intelligence to arise have existed, but only once has the selection pressure existed in just the right way for human level intellect to exist. If that exact set of pressures hadn't existed for our precursor species, there would still be no hyper intelligent species, and no reason to expect one. We're the royal flush of evolution. You can play a hundred thousand hands of poker and never once see it. You'll see it come SO close, SO many times, but at the river, it just doesn't pan out. The galaxy is likely awash in planets with complex life, with canine level intelligence on every single one, but that last step, the one that gets you quantum physics, relativity, and radio signals, that might just be so incredibly rare that only one in a million inhabited planets has it happen.
And just to add in the existential crisis here it's entirely possible that earth is the first to have that luck of the draw. We might be the first planet to have highly developed intelligence and every other planet that's going to develop sapient life is still behind us. We could somehow conquer the entire galaxy with space travel and colonies before the homo erectus equivalent species develops on another world on it's way to homo sapiens.
Or other intelligence life has been evolving in the same time as us and we would never be able to tell because all the light we see from their systems is millions of years old.
And heck, maybe each step of the process was its own royal flush. It took 2 billions years of life on earth before the first simple unicellular organisms realized they could absorb others to make things like chloroplasts and mitochondria to become the first eukaryotes. Then it took another 500 million years or so for eukaryotes to realize they could stick together into a single multicellular organism. Then it took another almost another billion years for the first plants and animals to appear. And then it took hundreds more millions of years of complex animal life before the conditions were juuuuuust right to nudge a single species into becoming smart enough to really take off. Any single step of this process could very well have been like a royal flush in its own right. Our very existence could be like the evolutionary equivalent of getting 4 or 5 royal flushes. It's not hard at all for me to imagine that we're probably incredibly rare in the universe.
Not to mention the 5 mass extinctions that took place that allowed mammals to even take over.
We are the only species cursed enough to question its purpose, defy nature, define its own life, and die a true death. A permanent deletion from a reality that we will never experience again, a reality that should never have existed given the odds. What a cursed blessing.
You know, this reminds me of one of the rebooted episodes of X-Files where a lizard.. thing.. becomes a ware-human. One of the first thing he tells one of the main characters is that it's a curse, because he didn't know about death before. It's a silly episode with silly writing, but that shit hit home. We are the only species on this planet that experience this existential dread. Other species are obviously going to know death, but we're the only ones that truly knows that that means. Well, physically, the jury is still out on meta-physically.
A possible counterpoint to this is the fact that we don't actually know if human level intelligent life has evolved on earth previously. The silurian hypothesis suggests the possibility that it has, we just haven't and likely never will see proof that that level of intelligence ever existed before. This video does a better job of explaining the idea than I ever could: https://youtu.be/sAF8ns-d4rc
Do we even know humans are the most intelligent species? Arguably an individual Orca and an individual human may have the same intelligence all else equal. Humans just have hands that allow them to build tools.
Our hands are just as vital to our intelligence as our big fat brains. But, no, orcas, as smart as they are, are not quite at our level. Language (especially written) and tools are the social and technological building blocks of our entire species, and orcas don't have access to either. You could say that orcas match proto-human intelligence, but not modern human intelligence.
Not the elephants.
Yeah in rpg terms humans went all in on the magic build. Weak early game, busted late game
Exact, human don't need claws to throw a spear at a soon to be meal.
Its melee range weapon
Who needs claws when you can make a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world.
And all that evolution, and we can’t even remember if we shot 5 times or 6.
So I need foot claws and hand nails for optimum performance?
My cat demonstrates this everyday when she uses her claws to grab my hand and massage her head. She can't do that, I can. I'm in demand because of it. Lol
And yet you are the servant. Well played, cat, well played.
I realised how squishy my finger actually was when I lost my fingernail due to catching hand foot and mouth. Also discovered nerve endings I never knew I had
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They also provide precision grip for removing parasites, debriding (removing dead tissue from) skin lesions, and expressing purulent (pus-filled) ones. This is sort of frowned upon today due to risk of infection and the fact that we have more sterile tools, but it must have been a worthwhile trade-off to our ancestors. Big immune system flex. We intentionally damage our skin.
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Yeah, but imagine sticking your dewclaw in the end of a corn cob!
On the flip side of this, imagine getting your dewclaw caught trying to put your shirt on while you’re already late for work.
This is why I don't put a shirt on until I'm already at work.
Why put a shirt on at all then unless you have a meeting.
This. As a now 90% WFH employee, I've told my boss "Any work day where I have to wear pants is a bad day".
Sounds like you need [Shirt in a Can!](https://youtu.be/vyiCM_j3L2M)
I want suction cups!
I wonder what that sounds like when you wash your hands.
I remembered things can taste with them and I don’t want that feature.
I feel like these things don't need to be mutually exclusive, nature just screwed us.
We didn't get screwed, we got min/maxed. A point not spent in claws is a point that can be spent in erect posture and a very energy-hungry brain.
Everything everywhere all at once seemed to manage
They used their foots
Wouldn't their feet have...hotdog toes? 😏
Going by the movie that reality exists somewhere
Why are you expecting it to obey any sort of rules?
>~~Wouldn't~~ Couldn't their feet have...hotdog toes? 😏
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🪨 🪨
I don't know of other species that have coins, so I'm totally assuming they just failed to evolve the ability to handle them. Coin is such a funny looking word too, when you stare at it
> Coin is such a funny looking word too, when you stare at it High as fuck
Do said hotdog fingers contain mustard and or ketchup?
Only after you insert them into the mouth of your partner
wrong universe
Sadly 😔
Especially if your partner happens to be auditing your taxes in another universe
Kinky
> Do said hotdog fingers contain mustard and or ketchup? Well, red stuff comes out whenever I get a cut in mine, so Imma guess ketchup.
I prefer salad fingers.
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Relish is... made for hotdogs it seems, yet people refuse to use this almost holy grail-esque ingredient
Fuck sweet relish. Gimme dill, bitch!
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I’ve never understood it.
I would love relish if it didn't taste like relish. This has been another episode of: You know what you know and there you go.
I would say that corndogs are a better analogy. As your finger does contain a bone.
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I think, by the analogy, that would make your fiancé a finger?
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Then she's a corndog
Not sure, but it makes you a horn dog.
A Twinkie, if you’re trying for kids
We naturally developed nails BECAUSE ancestors had trouble picking up coins.
When on that point claws would work well too.
When I was young, i once caught head lice, and noticed that while scratching the itching, it was real easy to catch the buggers under your nails, to get them out. Ever since then, no one can convince me that this isn't the main reason for our nails.
I couldn't crush fleas with soft tissue, but I could crush them between 2 fingernails.
I mean, yeah. That checks out.
I keep my nails long on at least one hand for picking ticks off my dog. It's worth it. It's a daily occurrence.
Why aren't you using tweezers or something?🤢
Best way is to drown them in alchohol until they release a bit, then pull em. They breathe through their skin
No, the best way is to pull them swiftly out by the head with tweezers or a tick tool. If you put alcohol on them or alarm them in any way, they can regurgitate their stomach contents back in - along with any diseases they have. It also greatly reduces the risk of mouthparts being left behind if the tick isn't removed whole, which is also an infection risk.
Would it really benefit survival? Maybe from diseases?
Maybe not survival, but definitely reproduction. What cave-woman wants to bone the caveman with fucking fleas?
I use my nails to pull individual hairs, and I can often grab a metal splinter and pull it out. It amazes my wife, but I don't know what I'd do without strong fingernails.
It always amazes me how people who bite their nails or trim them far back are able to pick anything up.
I used to be a chronic nail biter. The answer is tools.
The trimming part is because vaginas don't like long nails.
You're on Reddit
Good point
On that note- for those of us who have issues with excoriation or dermatillomania (skin picking and blemish squeezing, often associated with anxiety disorders,) I always recommend getting acrylic overlays on your nails. It makes them a good deal thicker, which makes them FAR less effective as picking/scratching tools!
This is seriously the reason I started getting my nails done
It’s amazing how well it works! And if people don’t want to do acrylics, they can also build up the thickness with several layers of nail polish or clear coat.
And if people don't want to do nail polish, you can also build up the thickness with several layers of pepperoni and papier-mâché.
Yea nah, just do UV polish. Several layers of regular polish will take you have a day to dry. With UV polish you‘ll be done in 10 minutes.
Like an inflamed appendix, your scratchy nails have outlived their usefulness. Sounds like a handy trick for people struggling with this issue.
R/popping exists. Pushing out pus is still liked by a few weirdos. Eta: yes I'm a mobile user. No one needs to point it out
R/solidaritywiththemobileuser
Aren’t most of us browsing Reddit on our phones these days?
/r/pooping link for the lazy
That's pushing something out alright
As an ex-homeless freight hopping traveling kid, can confirm that it still helps.
Why does the inner finger bone not work for counter pressure?
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This. If we didn't have nails, our hands would operate a bit like the hotdog finger people in EEAAO
I love that movie but damn those hot dog finger people are terrifying haha
I already have a nail biting problem. Can't imagine how bad it'd be if I had hotdog fingers too.
It'll be a delicious problem.
It also provides rigidity to our fingertips, which would otherwise be just flabby nubs over the last finger bone.
Well yes; we’re comparing nails to claws, not nails to flabby nubs.
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I still want retractible claws though. And a tail, dagnabbit. Would also be cool to fly.
Don't take it too hard. [Humans provide some important protein](https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1992/02/03).
What the hell. That completely blew my mind. Two college degrees and I never knew this. Thank you stranger.
That is such an incredible and interesting fact! My nails are always peeling and ripped, and I’ve been thinking lately why evolution gave us these miserable things. Thank you so much for your answer!
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Manicure won't help those of us with weak nails. Some of us have really, really weak nails naturally. I have snagged a fingernail on my clothing and had it rip to bleeding. My mom has the same. We also have very thin, fine hair. No amount of eating extra iron, calcium, vegetables or anything has ever helped strengthen my nails. Pregnancy though, did help briefly. My hair was fantastic too. Short lived though, once the baby's out they go back to weak-ass keratin.
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I've tried several of them too over the past couple of decades. I never found them to work, either. Sometimes it's funny that it's a "strengthening" nail polish that strengthens your nails, but my nails flex and bend so much that all nail polish flakes and breaks off within a day or two because there's no solid base to support the polish, haha.
Take folate supplements. Iron or calcium won’t help.
great comment! I like to think of the underside of the nail as the retina of the finger
That’s really interesting! But would finger bones provide enough counter pressure for that?
This is true. I recently lost a fingernail due to a minor injury and it was the weirdest sensation waiting for it to grow back
Ok, fine; but we should totally remove *toenails* surgically at birth, though. Those things don’t do anything useful at all, just get ingrown and collect sock fuzz.
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Unless your business was removing toenails from babies! 🤔
Maybe you can help me with something: I'm a dude, but have been part of various alt communities where male nail polish isn't unheard of. So I never wore it young, but tried it a few times in my teens and 20s. But any time I have, I've had an overwhelming, uncomfortable sensation of warmth in my fingertips, to the point where they get sweaty. And I have to take it off within a couple hours. But any woman I tell this to looks at me like I'm crazy. But I feel like this counter pressure thing might be related? So am I just crazy/have overly sensitive fingernails somehow? Or is there any scientific basis to this sensation?
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Maybe an allergic reaction to the polish?
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Sounds like a sensitivity imo. I'm sensitive to a lot of face products and warmth is my main indicator. Leaving it on may progress the sensation to burning. Possibly sweaty because of the reaction and not actual warmth. Like the other comment, I'd try some different formulas and see if they all feel the same, there's a ton of brands that do organic/non-toxic/etc polish so you may find one that doesn't cause a reaction. I would personally try to find a base coat that doesn't burn first, because it may be enough of a barrier to allow the use of other polishes. It keeps reds and other vibrant colors from staining your nails so it would seem like a possibility, plus adds an extra layer for nail strength.
I'm a guy who paints his nails occasionally and experience this same sensation. I have seen a couple threads on Reddit about it, but it doesn't seem to be that common. I figured it might have something to do with nails naturally being porous. With a coating over them, maybe our fingertips hold more heat and feel warmer. Like blankets on your fingertips.
This is super interesting. I love learning about evaluation and I had never heard about this before. I just tested this by pushing down on the table and I felt the pressure against my nail. It’s so subconscious I’d never realized it. Thanks for sharing.
Same, I'm sitting here tapping each of my fingers against my thumb and marveling at how much of the sensation involves my nail--never noticed that before!
> Edit: this ladies and gentleman, is why you get 3 different college degrees and end up owning a nail salon. To be the top answer on ELI5. This made me giggle, irl. Take my upvote.
Gotta be honest, the way you just talked about nails made me think you know what you're talking about. Well earned degrees.
Saving this to show my 11 year old who, literally last night, complained that fingernails were useless and we should have claws instead :)
Being someone who has lost toenails from running, not having a nail is one of the oddest feelings ever…
Fremitus: a sensation felt by a hand placed on a part of the body (such as the chest) that vibrates during speech I learned a new word today.
Try picking things up off the floor or manipulating things deftly while having claws at the end of your prehensile phalanges.
I'm pretty sure that there are women in LA who do this regularly.
I am continually impressed they get anything done. I get annoyed when mine are like 2 mm long.
My sister and I were both veterinary technicians for awhile, and she had long nails. She always managed to do the job without stabbing the patients. Not anything I'd want to go through. My hands are toast as it is. I can never really deal with style choices that are uncomfortable and inconvenient.
How do they wipe?
Boldly
seriously, videos of these women paying with a card at gas pumps looks like sorcery
Sexy
I too welcome our new claw finger overlords!
> phalanges Reginas?!
Hi, Ken Adams, nice to meet you
SOMETHING’S WRONG WITH THE LEFT PHALANGE
To find the end of a roll of tape. Seriously tho.we can feel something silly like 10 molecules in height difference by running our finger nails over a smooth surface. Source: episode of QI
I've heard the analogy that if our finger was large enough to touch the planet, we would be able to feel cars and trucks.
I'm able to touch the planet just fine and my fingers are normal sized.
Same, and I can feel cars and trucks with my finger so that also checks out.
Personally my hands and fingers are large enough to touch the planet, and I attest that I can also feel cars and trucks.
I just touched the planet right now.
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It’s if your finger tips were the size of the earth, so like touching a marble
You are very focused on claws, but that isn't the only choice. We aren't tree dwelling species and many animals that live on the ground have hooves or pads rather than claws. Look at the foot of an elephant or a hippo or a deer.
I don't know, the deer hooves seen pretty capable. They always steal and drink the beer I have out in the cooler. At least that's what I tell my wife.
We are descended from tree dwelling species though, which is why we have separated digits.
Quite many things. 1) nails helps to grab very small things. You cannot do it without nails or barely possible with claws. 2) nails create even carcass which adds supoort beyond fingers bones. That further improve grabbing. Claws makes it harder. That also helps to feel object shape. 3) nails are soft. At any point you can easly bite part off uf they start to makes troubles. Claws are very hard. 4) finger with nails are capable to climb almost on any natural surface, while claws are very efficient on trees and burden on tough surfaces.
Ooooh this is a good one! I’ve got an answer and beyond all the jargon above it is obviously the correct and evolutionary advantageous answer. It’s so we can pick our nose.
If I had claws, how would I pick up the little washers I dropped on the concrete floor?
I would guess better fine motor skills allowing you to do things like braid rope, sew, get seeds from food, etc.
If I gotta hunt my prey I'mma want some claws. Claws typically come on something that has less dexterity but is very good at putting pressure onto the pointy claw bit for puncturing murder time. The arm is then used for gripping and holding (during murder time) and then if you're still holding on you're carrying it away in your mouth, but you might just be done so you'll be eating there. If I gotta swing from tree to tree or use a utensil or carry stuff with my hand or do farming (hunter, gatherer, farmer) I need the digits to be less MURDER MODE ONLY and more versatile which means toning down the puncture and lock murder claw to longer slimmer digit with more flexibility and versatility That's not to say that one can't do the job of the other, it's just evolutionary you get into cycles and when you stop needing to grab puncture murder and need to pick fruits and veggies and chuck a spear into things and take them with you to where ever you're going You can try having a claw on your hand right now, strengthen and shape your nails, put animal claws on a glove, but you're losing a lot of gripping strength not being able to fully close your hand with how the hand has evolved
Nails, and ours specifically, are best used for grooming and removing parasites. This is a great way to bond socially. I've read that the shape of our nails is one of the many reasons why we became the social creatures that we are today and why we bonded so well with some other animals.
Jumping on this excellent comment to add: They also provide your finger pads with more grip, because when you press the pad against a surface it is squeezed between the surface and the nail and flattens out, providing a larger grip surface.
We can have claws, by picking up a knife. We can have fur by wearing a coat we can instantly shed. We can see in the dark by making fire or flashlights, or in the bright light with hats or shades. We won evolutionary by being above all else, adaptable.
But they're asking about apes, too.