That’s my question o’ the day.
L.
I grew up in the low desert. Every year I would be subjected to a lecture on desert safety where the person giving the talk would show pictures of victims of the desert. There were always some dumb person who would leave their vehicle and start walking during the daylight hours. I remember one picture which showed the person as being almost black from the sun yet this person was a very pale caucasian. So based on this I would say that yes the skin does continue to pigment after death.
It would be a very silly corpse. Sunburn is dangerous!
They sure do. Now run along.
Of course not. Haven’t you seen Weekend at Bernie’s?
Of course, they also don’t decompose.
Your RL name isn’t Marilyn Vos Savant, is it, Keppele?
Originally posted by deb2world:
I remember one picture which showed the person as being almost black from the sun yet this person was a very pale caucasian. So based on this I would say that yes the skin does continue to pigment after death.
Based on this, you would be mistaken. What you saw was not tanning, but burning. I know, most people think sunburn is on a continuum with suntanning, but it’s different.
Tanning is pigmentation caused by activation of the melanocytes by ultraviolet radiation exposure. The melanocytes then produce melanin, which accumulates in the skin, producing darker coloration. This clearly requires living cells, hence, life.
Burning is simply cellular damage caused by over-exposure to ultraviolet radiation. The physical process of damage and destruction is nearly identical to that caused by heat exposure. IOW, heat radiation (infrared) results in short-term skin damage in much the same manner as ultraviolet radiation. When human skin is exposed to high temperatures or extreme radiation, it turns black (carbon). Remember the movies of the Buddhist monk self-immolating in Saigon to protest the Vietnam War? Remember the color of his skin at the end? Same color, same process.
In a college course I took, they had the state medical examiner present a slide show of autoposy photos. There were several pix of people who had succumbed to non-violent deaths who were quite black. When the corpses were shifted to expose body portions that had not had ready access to circulated air, those areas were still quite pale. So, while I’m dubious that tanning occurs after cellular activity has ceased, it should be remembered that putrescence will do an admirable job of giving you that dark skin you’ve always desired. Oh, and your wrinkles tend to disappear as well, thanks to bloating. So diet first, die later.
it wouldn’t look good on them even if they did.