• Question: What makes skin?

    Asked by to Andrei, Ekbal, Gemma, Helen, Ruth on 20 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Gemma Marsden

      Gemma Marsden answered on 20 Jun 2014:


      Hi tmacd11,
      skin is the largest organ you have! It consists of 2 parts: the epidermis and dermis. The epidermis is the part you can see and the dermis the part that contains the blood vessels. The epidermis has no blood vessels so when you bleed from a cut, you have cut your dermis.
      Each layer can also be divided into more layers and these layers contain a variety of cells, including very special cells that continually divide.
      The role these cells (stem cells) take in the body is decided as an embryo.

    • Photo: Helen Gath

      Helen Gath answered on 20 Jun 2014:


      yes, just as Gemma said, our skins is made of layers. New cells grow from the base layer found deeper into the skin. As these cells grow beneath old cells, they slowly push the older cells further up and away.

      Imagine you have a stack of books of the table, each one representing a cell. New cells will be added at the very bottom of the pile, directly in contact with the table. This pushes the oldest cell (or book in this example) up higher and away. This outer cell (book) eventually dies and falls off. You may not notice this happening, but we are always shedding dead skin to make space for new cells.

      Hope you like the extra info and that it wasn’t too much.

      Helen

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