…Well, for caucasians, that is.
I was pondering the arrector pili (sp?) question when I noticed that my complexion was pretty pink for being filled with blood. Is it just the white of my fat being dilted with a blood supply? I remember from an unfortunate hiking accident that the inside of my arm is a lot darker than the outside. Even the epithelium has a blood supply and whatnot…what is it?
Melanin.
Yeah - what he said. A little more detail - isn’t is true that skin is not clear or even all that translucent (with all layers intact), and that its main coloring is the result of melanin?
That being the case, then people with darker skin tend to live in sunny climes where the melanin can be darker a) to protect the skin and b) because the live-giving parts of the sun (e.g., vitamin D, etc.) can be obtained even though the melanin is at a protective level. People with lighter skin, therefore, come from colder climates, where melanin has evolved to make better use of the available sunlight.
I am not even close to a doctor, though - if there is a doctor in the house, then by all means, take the microphone…
There is a great article on this in Discover magazine. I think it was within the past two months.
I thought melanin was the dark pigment that gave skin it’s color? (freckles etc) I didn’t think it made things lighter.
Unless you’re dead or dating Pamela Anderson, your skin shouldn’t be “white.” It might be a pinkish pale tan or tanish pink or simply taupe, but it ain’t “white.” (George Hamilton is the obvious exception.)
BTW, I recently read that although their skin may at times be dramatically darker, “black” individuals have the equivalent of only an SPF 4. (No cite, sorry.)
OK, I remembered the Discover article. BAsically, if you get a lot of sunlight and you are white, your body will overproduce certain vitamins and chemicals, so your skin needs more pigment (melanin). If you don’t get enough light and you have dark skin, you suffer from a defficiency of these vitamins.
The biggest factor is lattitude. You will notice that the color of skin is dependent on the lattitude where the race originated. You do’t have black norwegians and white Mayans.
See if you can look up the article. It is very interesting.
Please forgive me, but I ~still~ don’t understand the answer…
Melanin = pigment gives skin its darkness, yes
complexion = lattitude and geographic factors
I’m not white, I’m a pasty pink, sometimes darker red or tan (in summer)
So it’s the skin cells that give me my ‘white’ tinge?
Again, sorry for the ignorance…but like he said, it’s taking longer tahn we thought. :\
I think I understand your question, although I’m sorry that I can’t really answer it. Are you asking why it is that with less & less melanin, the skin becomes more & more “whitish” instead of more & more some other color, like grey, for instance? I would assume that this is because of what the skin tissues consist of (protein?), minus blood, melanin, and whatever other substances add tint.
Hopefully I’m on the right track & someone else will step in with a good explanation.
Thank you for articulating my thoughts better, Playdeaux.
I’ll try again now that I understand the questions.
because your skin reflects light well and does not absorb certain colors. In other words, for the same reason that anything is a certain color.
I imagine that white is probably not the most advantageous color to be. But it is good enough to get us to reproduction age, so it works. I imagine we could be anny color at all.
we started off with a lot more fur, so skin color probably did not come into play much.