why can’t you push your finger nails back into the nail root?
In: Biology
You mean like sliding them back to make them shorter? You can, technically, if you push hard enough. Better lay out some paper towels first though, cos it’s going to be messy.
Nails are just more of your body. They’re grown from cells in your fingers and toes. Those cells divide, and the new cells made are filled with a hard protein structure called keratin, to give them the properties of a nail instead of the properties of skin. There isn’t any empty space behind the nail, so if you were to push it back hard enough, it would move into the space currently occupied by those cells that make the nail, and those cells that make the nail would get pushed into the bone of the finger. And since all these cells are held together by collagen (the structural protein that prevents your body just falling apart), this is going to require tearing tissues, which is going to produce a lot of blood.
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