WEBVTT - The Skin We Live In 0:00:03.800 --> 0:00:06.680 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.720 --> 0:00:13.920 Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:13.960 --> 0:00:16.840 My name is Robert Lamb and my name is Julie Douglas. 0:00:16.960 --> 0:00:19.799 And we're talking about skin today, the skin that we 0:00:19.840 --> 0:00:23.400 live in, the skin that covers our bodies, that is 0:00:23.400 --> 0:00:25.600 our bodies. Yeah, you know, I've been wanting to tell 0:00:25.640 --> 0:00:27.960 you this for a long time, and we've been podcasting 0:00:27.960 --> 0:00:30.040 now for what like a year and a half or so, 0:00:30.040 --> 0:00:31.880 so I feel like I could finally tell you. Okay, 0:00:32.120 --> 0:00:34.720 let me, let me have your epiderms is showing. We 0:00:35.640 --> 0:00:37.680 were just talking about this. This is this is the 0:00:37.720 --> 0:00:40.760 popular second grade, third grade joke. I guess you've got 0:00:41.360 --> 0:00:43.640 or one person comes to this is epidermousis showing and 0:00:43.640 --> 0:00:47.800 it sounds dirty or or oh what's happening something on 0:00:47.920 --> 0:00:50.160 zip to it. It's just just my skin And that's 0:00:50.200 --> 0:00:53.959 the punchline. Oh but everyone's skin is showing right right right. 0:00:54.000 --> 0:00:56.680 And here's the thing though, that that's that's the deal 0:00:56.760 --> 0:00:59.760 about skin. It seems not too exciting, the thing that 0:00:59.800 --> 0:01:04.600 gets overlooked a punchline, but it's amazing stuff. And and 0:01:04.880 --> 0:01:06.480 as you all can tell, we are going to talk 0:01:06.520 --> 0:01:09.279 about this today. Yeah, so people probably heard this fact before, 0:01:09.319 --> 0:01:12.559 but it is in fact the largest organ human body. 0:01:12.560 --> 0:01:14.960 If you ever gone to a trivia night somewhere, they've 0:01:15.000 --> 0:01:17.120 probably thrown that one out. It's a favorite on the 0:01:17.160 --> 0:01:20.039 trivia circuit. If you were to stretch out the average 0:01:20.080 --> 0:01:23.520 adult skin, it would cover twenty two square feet two 0:01:23.560 --> 0:01:26.080 square meters and it's a little bigger than a twin bed, 0:01:26.160 --> 0:01:28.240 and it would weigh about eight pounds. That sounds a 0:01:28.280 --> 0:01:31.200 little horrific. It sounds a little like Buffalo Bill Signs 0:01:31.200 --> 0:01:32.679 of the Lamps if you were to stretch it out. 0:01:32.720 --> 0:01:37.080 But yes, if if you were teaching my favorite at 0:01:37.160 --> 0:01:40.760 least favorite skinners in fiction, like Buffalo Bill. There's a 0:01:41.440 --> 0:01:45.680 there's a fabulous or horrifying character in Larry McMurtry's Comanche 0:01:45.720 --> 0:01:50.040 Moon who skins people. There is a terrifying skinning sequence 0:01:50.160 --> 0:01:54.600 in Murakami's which one was not the wind Up Yeah, yeah, 0:01:54.600 --> 0:01:56.880 it is the wind Up Bird Chronicle. There's a Mongolian 0:01:57.040 --> 0:02:00.560 flair that plays a man alive, and of course fans 0:02:00.560 --> 0:02:03.200 of the Game of Throne series know the Bolton Clan 0:02:03.440 --> 0:02:06.360 rather well, it's a horrifying thing to anticipate. One more 0:02:06.920 --> 0:02:11.640 Evil Willow from Buffy someone who who does she get 0:02:11.639 --> 0:02:14.200 does somebody that someone who did something to her? Lady out? 0:02:14.360 --> 0:02:17.040 Oh yes, yes, that sin. Yeah, but obviously this was 0:02:17.080 --> 0:02:19.880 a very dramatic moment. So yeah, we're gonna talk about that. 0:02:20.000 --> 0:02:22.560 We're gonna talk about invistration. So much is just this 0:02:22.720 --> 0:02:25.360 thing that we're wearing on us. Just flavoring the horror 0:02:25.440 --> 0:02:28.080 of being skinned kind of drives home just how important 0:02:28.120 --> 0:02:30.960 it is. It is the surface level of our being. 0:02:31.160 --> 0:02:33.440 It is the layer with which we sense the world 0:02:33.480 --> 0:02:36.079 around us. It is the layer that carries their physical identity, 0:02:36.520 --> 0:02:39.120 and we tend to have a really hard time living 0:02:39.200 --> 0:02:42.160 without it. Oh yeah, we'd be using all over. But yeah, 0:02:42.160 --> 0:02:43.959 I mean it's pretty important. We clean it, we decorate it, 0:02:44.000 --> 0:02:45.720 we stretch it and pull it and pierce it. And 0:02:45.760 --> 0:02:48.360 in two thousand and seven, here's a nice start, eleven 0:02:48.400 --> 0:02:53.160 point seven million Americans underwent some sort of cosmetic procedure botox, 0:02:53.200 --> 0:02:56.560 filler surgery, so on. That is a four hundred and 0:02:56.600 --> 0:03:00.400 fifty seven percent increase from a decade earlier. So we're 0:03:00.440 --> 0:03:03.200 pretty concerned about how we are portraying our skin to 0:03:03.240 --> 0:03:07.280 the world. And that's not counting tattooing, right, No, exactly exactly. 0:03:07.520 --> 0:03:10.560 There's a lot associated with this. There's ego, there's beauty, 0:03:10.680 --> 0:03:13.760 there's ritual. And here's another little fact I wanted to 0:03:13.800 --> 0:03:18.840 throw out. There are relative hairlessness is not something that 0:03:19.040 --> 0:03:22.079 is an adaptation of us wearing clothes or us having 0:03:22.160 --> 0:03:25.480 descended from dolphins. It's a it's more to do with 0:03:25.600 --> 0:03:28.840 our abundance of sweat glands. So that's why we are 0:03:28.880 --> 0:03:32.320 the hairless wonders that we are. Some are the hairless wonders, yeah, 0:03:32.400 --> 0:03:35.040 someone others Like I was watching an older film where 0:03:35.080 --> 0:03:37.080 they had medallions the other day, and I was thinking, Oh, 0:03:37.240 --> 0:03:40.280 if the medallion comes back as a male fashion accessory, 0:03:40.760 --> 0:03:42.840 they're going to be a number of guys out there 0:03:42.880 --> 0:03:45.160 who are not who are going to lack the prominent 0:03:45.240 --> 0:03:49.000 chest hair required to prominently display said medallion. And I 0:03:49.040 --> 0:03:51.360 was wondering if there is a business opportunity there for 0:03:51.440 --> 0:03:53.920 me in the marketing of I guess it would be 0:03:53.960 --> 0:03:57.600 like a chess market or something, a chess market chess wig, 0:03:57.680 --> 0:03:59.760 you know, because you don't want the medallion just said 0:03:59.800 --> 0:04:01.760 in there, and I just I mean, this is a 0:04:01.800 --> 0:04:04.200 good day. I'm going to say this right now, you know, 0:04:04.280 --> 0:04:07.000 Merkan hasn't come up a long time in conversation, so 0:04:07.400 --> 0:04:08.960 the fact that you just brought it up, I really 0:04:09.000 --> 0:04:10.839 appreciate that. I'm sure there are other people out there 0:04:11.120 --> 0:04:14.600 that you just got some marking points with there. We 0:04:14.680 --> 0:04:18.080 are relatively careless, except for those who want to maybe 0:04:18.080 --> 0:04:20.400 go back to the seventies and wear medallions and put 0:04:20.480 --> 0:04:23.120 a roguain on their chest. But let's just have a 0:04:23.160 --> 0:04:26.640 little overview of how this wonder skin works for us 0:04:26.680 --> 0:04:28.839 well and why at imports. As we mentioned before, you know, 0:04:28.880 --> 0:04:32.960 without it, we would be using Clive Barkery horror shows. 0:04:33.240 --> 0:04:35.800 And that's telling because the skin is a protective layer. 0:04:35.839 --> 0:04:37.840 You can think of it as the wall all right 0:04:38.400 --> 0:04:40.880 inside all of our guts and our bones and all 0:04:40.920 --> 0:04:42.479 this is very important. But you can think of it 0:04:42.520 --> 0:04:45.320 as like a medieval city. And we recently discussed the 0:04:45.320 --> 0:04:47.799 walls in an entire episode, and we discussed the importance 0:04:47.839 --> 0:04:50.279 of those walls surrounding that city to protect it from 0:04:50.640 --> 0:04:54.640 marauders and invading armies and barbarians. Well, same deal with 0:04:54.680 --> 0:04:57.200 the skin. The skin is there, this is the wall 0:04:57.279 --> 0:04:59.520 around the city, and the white blood cells are the 0:04:59.560 --> 0:05:03.080 soldier is manning that wall to fight off the bacterial 0:05:03.200 --> 0:05:06.360 invaders that would come in the first line of defense 0:05:06.440 --> 0:05:11.000 on the epidermis right um. And the epidermis is also 0:05:11.279 --> 0:05:13.960 helping to produce melanin, which we'll talk about in a 0:05:14.000 --> 0:05:16.600 little bit, So we have a second line of defense. 0:05:17.080 --> 0:05:20.400 This is the dermist. Yes, and this is like sort 0:05:20.440 --> 0:05:22.360 of the meat of the sandwich I think of it is, Yeah, 0:05:22.360 --> 0:05:23.920 I think this is where you find blood vessels, is 0:05:24.040 --> 0:05:26.719 full of collagen, which gives it the firmness that we 0:05:26.800 --> 0:05:29.320 encounter with skin. And it's also where you'll find sweat 0:05:29.360 --> 0:05:32.200 glands and the hair follicles. And it contains all these 0:05:32.240 --> 0:05:35.440 nerve endings as well. That allows to feel sensations such 0:05:35.480 --> 0:05:38.120 as heat, cold, and pain. And as we've discussed in 0:05:38.120 --> 0:05:41.080 the past and discussing pain, when our pain sensation is 0:05:41.120 --> 0:05:44.559 working appropriately, it is an important warning sign that something 0:05:44.640 --> 0:05:47.359 is wrong, that something has pierced the defenses, that something 0:05:47.440 --> 0:05:50.279 may pierce the defenses, that something may damage the walls 0:05:50.520 --> 0:05:53.760 of our being. It also tells our immune system like, hey, 0:05:53.800 --> 0:05:55.880 by the way, we've got stuff going on, why don't 0:05:55.920 --> 0:05:58.479 you get into the action here. Because we tried to 0:05:58.640 --> 0:06:02.159 vanquish this bacteria with our white blood cells, but you know, 0:06:02.320 --> 0:06:04.640 possibly you should get in on the game as well, right, 0:06:04.680 --> 0:06:06.719 And those blood vessels also have an important role to 0:06:06.720 --> 0:06:09.479 play in regulating our body temperature. We touched on some 0:06:09.520 --> 0:06:13.000 of this when we were discussing the possibility and impossibility 0:06:13.000 --> 0:06:14.920 of gigantic creatures, and that was one of the things 0:06:14.920 --> 0:06:17.640 that came up and discussing like King Kong, is that 0:06:17.720 --> 0:06:19.320 you have a body that big, you've got a cooler 0:06:19.320 --> 0:06:22.720 body that big unregulated temperatures. So a blood vessels in 0:06:22.760 --> 0:06:26.520 the skin contract and dilate depending on the outside temperature. 0:06:26.839 --> 0:06:29.520 So when it's cold outside, blood vessels contract to keep 0:06:29.520 --> 0:06:31.440 the blood near the surface of your skin from it 0:06:31.520 --> 0:06:33.800 cooming too cool. And when it's hot outside, the same 0:06:33.880 --> 0:06:38.120 vessels expand to encourage heat loss and you begin to sweat. Ah. 0:06:38.160 --> 0:06:40.920 So that's what's keeping us all nice and comfortable. And 0:06:40.960 --> 0:06:44.560 then we have the hypodermis, which is just basically attaching 0:06:44.680 --> 0:06:47.080 the skin to the bones and the muscles. Yeah, this 0:06:47.120 --> 0:06:50.000 is the innermost layer and it's just the ground level 0:06:50.080 --> 0:06:53.280 of the skin. The tethering system. Yeah. Yeah, So our 0:06:53.320 --> 0:06:54.920 skin has to do a couple of things. That has 0:06:54.960 --> 0:06:57.960 to absorb enough ultra violet radiation from the sun to 0:06:58.000 --> 0:07:01.599 manufacture vitamin D. We your bodies really need to keep 0:07:01.600 --> 0:07:05.880 our bones strong and healthy. So I forgot the white 0:07:05.880 --> 0:07:08.159 blood cells are the soldiers manning the walls and the 0:07:08.200 --> 0:07:10.520 sea bone. They're like the outside force that kind of 0:07:10.520 --> 0:07:13.560 patrols right outside the gate. Our pores pump out this 0:07:13.680 --> 0:07:17.640 oily sea bone stuff, which is more difficult for bacteria 0:07:17.720 --> 0:07:20.960 to penetrate. It's just another protective layer. It's a nice 0:07:20.960 --> 0:07:26.440 little sheen on our skin. Yes, So it's doing all 0:07:26.440 --> 0:07:30.000 sorts of things, and it is also using and harnessing 0:07:30.040 --> 0:07:33.000 the power of the sun right to manufacture vitamin D. 0:07:33.600 --> 0:07:36.600 Keeping us healthy, also keep our immune systems in check, 0:07:37.120 --> 0:07:39.760 and it protects us from the damage of too much 0:07:39.840 --> 0:07:43.000 ultra violet radiation from the sun because if you get 0:07:43.080 --> 0:07:45.920 too much uvy radiation, that destroys something called full eight 0:07:46.440 --> 0:07:50.200 and fullate is really important in terms of cell function 0:07:50.240 --> 0:07:53.720 and cell reproduction. Fullate deficiency is actually linked to neural 0:07:53.760 --> 0:07:56.200 tobe birth effects during pregnancy. That's why a lot of 0:07:56.200 --> 0:07:59.440 pregnant women take supplements for it. But this is something 0:07:59.440 --> 0:08:01.960 we're getting to you here, is this idea that our 0:08:02.040 --> 0:08:05.040 skin isn't just a protective covering, making sure that our 0:08:05.120 --> 0:08:08.840 organs don't fall out, but that there's other little nuanced 0:08:08.880 --> 0:08:13.320 things going on at the level where melanin is produced. Yeah, 0:08:13.400 --> 0:08:17.040 Melanine is a pigment that's produced in specialized skin cells 0:08:17.080 --> 0:08:20.200 called care at incites. And the more melanine you have, 0:08:20.400 --> 0:08:23.520 the darker your skin happens to be. So hormones and 0:08:23.560 --> 0:08:26.040 genetics player role in this, and it and determines how 0:08:26.120 --> 0:08:28.360 much a pigment our bodies will produce. And it also 0:08:28.400 --> 0:08:30.840 explains the wide variety of skin tones that we have, 0:08:31.040 --> 0:08:33.439 Like you even have two siblings that share the same parents, 0:08:33.960 --> 0:08:36.640 but they'll have slightly different skin tones going on or 0:08:36.800 --> 0:08:38.520 sometimes not even so slight. And this is called the 0:08:38.520 --> 0:08:42.200 biological adaptation. It's a trait that's evolved over time because 0:08:42.240 --> 0:08:44.640 it increases the likelihood that that person will survive long 0:08:44.760 --> 0:08:48.360 enough to produce. Professor and author Nina Jablonsky did a 0:08:48.400 --> 0:08:51.880 great TED talk about the illusion of skin color, and 0:08:51.960 --> 0:08:55.400 she talks about this fact that we are so connected 0:08:55.440 --> 0:08:58.679 to our early ancestors. We are connected by our DNA, 0:08:58.920 --> 0:09:03.760 by our mitochondrial DNA, and yet we have these differences 0:09:03.840 --> 0:09:07.000 in our skin pigmentation. And a lot of this seems 0:09:07.080 --> 0:09:09.160 like yes, this all makes sense, but when she talks 0:09:09.160 --> 0:09:12.840 about it in this way, it's really fascinating. She talks 0:09:12.840 --> 0:09:15.960 about it by saying, let's look at what the earliest 0:09:16.040 --> 0:09:19.079 humans were dealing with in terms of their environment and 0:09:19.120 --> 0:09:22.559 why they had such a concentration of melanin in their skins. 0:09:23.160 --> 0:09:27.120 They had evolved in high UV environments in equatorial Africa. 0:09:27.240 --> 0:09:30.000 And again it's important to drive home again, melanin helps 0:09:30.080 --> 0:09:33.120 absorb the harmful for violet rays of the sun, so 0:09:33.280 --> 0:09:35.640 light skinned people have a greater tendency to get sunburned 0:09:35.880 --> 0:09:38.160 than dark skinned people, and that's where we also see 0:09:38.280 --> 0:09:40.839 panning come into play, right, Right, so you think about 0:09:40.840 --> 0:09:44.800 melanin as a natural sunscreen, right, Yeah. And so we're 0:09:44.840 --> 0:09:47.960 looking back at this early environment on Earth and we 0:09:48.000 --> 0:09:50.800 know that melanin has been in production for millions of years, 0:09:50.960 --> 0:09:53.880 and we've got the earliest humans hanging out near the 0:09:53.920 --> 0:09:57.400 equator and that is being bombarded the atmosphere by uv B, 0:09:57.679 --> 0:10:01.440 UV A and UVC. Now UVC is pretty much sort 0:10:01.440 --> 0:10:04.679 of being filtered out in the atmosphere, but UVB and 0:10:04.920 --> 0:10:08.600 uv A are really killing it. And v B can 0:10:08.640 --> 0:10:12.199 be really destructive. And yet it's also really important as 0:10:12.240 --> 0:10:15.079 we've talked about and producing are helping your skin to 0:10:15.120 --> 0:10:18.559 produce vitamin deed, especially when you're dealing with early civilizations 0:10:18.600 --> 0:10:22.320 where people are not working office jobs nine to five. 0:10:22.440 --> 0:10:24.520 I mean, everyone is more or less out in the open. 0:10:24.800 --> 0:10:26.680 And if you're living in an area that's not, say, 0:10:26.679 --> 0:10:29.560 heavily wooded, that doesn't benefit from a lot of cloud cover, 0:10:30.120 --> 0:10:32.440 then you're going to be absorbing this stuff on a 0:10:32.559 --> 0:10:35.800 verily regular basis well. And in this small concentration of 0:10:35.880 --> 0:10:38.920 area right like between tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, this 0:10:39.000 --> 0:10:43.040 is where early man is setting up shop because most 0:10:43.080 --> 0:10:44.680 of the rest of the earth is way too cold, 0:10:45.320 --> 0:10:47.920 it's way too harsh. So yeah, you're gonna have to 0:10:47.920 --> 0:10:50.920 be dealing with this environment in your skin is actually 0:10:50.920 --> 0:10:55.320 going to naturally select to pigment itself, to to create 0:10:55.360 --> 0:10:59.920 this sunscreen for itself. But Jabonski says, Okay, what happened 0:11:00.280 --> 0:11:05.680 is that we then have migration, yes, and humans dispersed 0:11:05.760 --> 0:11:09.360 not once but twice major moves outside of our equatorial 0:11:09.400 --> 0:11:12.040 homeland from Africa and to other parts of the Old 0:11:12.080 --> 0:11:15.000 World and then most recently in the New World. And 0:11:15.120 --> 0:11:18.000 she says that when they were dispersed into these latitudes, 0:11:18.120 --> 0:11:21.120 conditions were significantly colder, of course, but they were also 0:11:21.600 --> 0:11:25.480 less intense with respect to the ultra violet regime, as 0:11:25.520 --> 0:11:28.559 she calls it. So, over thousands of years, we see 0:11:28.800 --> 0:11:33.680 individuals move from brighter, warmer climates to colder, darker climates, 0:11:34.240 --> 0:11:37.000 and then over the course of say a single generation 0:11:37.120 --> 0:11:39.360 or even less, you will have this new migration where 0:11:39.360 --> 0:11:43.400 someone will move from these darker, colder regions right back 0:11:43.400 --> 0:11:45.960 to where they started from, more or less in terms 0:11:46.000 --> 0:11:49.080 of heat and light within just a few years. Yeah, So, 0:11:49.120 --> 0:11:50.760 all of a sudden, you do have some of these 0:11:50.840 --> 0:11:53.760 lands opening up as the climate warms, right, and it 0:11:53.800 --> 0:11:56.840 becomes possible to live in the northern climbs, and you 0:11:56.960 --> 0:12:00.480 have dark skinned people who begin to adapt, as you say, 0:12:00.559 --> 0:12:04.880 within generations to this, and they begin producing less melanin 0:12:05.000 --> 0:12:08.280 and become lighter skinned. And I just think it's fascinating 0:12:08.320 --> 0:12:10.400 because this is the reason why we have this array 0:12:10.480 --> 0:12:14.319 of colors. And she makes this incredible point to Blonsky. 0:12:14.400 --> 0:12:17.320 She says that we don't need a proof of concept 0:12:17.480 --> 0:12:21.160 to explain evolution that is overly complex. She says, just 0:12:21.280 --> 0:12:23.240 look at your skin and you can see the evidence 0:12:23.320 --> 0:12:26.120 of natural selection at play. Yeah, it's pretty fascinating and 0:12:26.200 --> 0:12:28.880 it really changes the way you look at different skin 0:12:28.960 --> 0:12:32.440 pigments among different racial groups that just based on where 0:12:32.480 --> 0:12:34.360 they are in the world. Well, and I think that 0:12:34.440 --> 0:12:37.800 it's given science and in particularly medicine a better understanding 0:12:37.920 --> 0:12:41.000 of how our environment really affects our health. So if 0:12:41.040 --> 0:12:43.160 you are someone who with light skin and you're living 0:12:43.360 --> 0:12:46.959 near the equator, then you have the very real possibility 0:12:47.080 --> 0:12:49.640 that you're going to be deficient and in full eight, 0:12:50.160 --> 0:12:52.160 and so you needed to take supplements for that. If 0:12:52.160 --> 0:12:54.920 you're dark skin and you're living in extreme northern climbs, 0:12:55.000 --> 0:12:57.360 then you're going to take vitamin D because you're not 0:12:57.400 --> 0:13:01.520 gonna produce nearly enough from a week UVB coming through. 0:13:01.559 --> 0:13:04.080 And there really a lot of us anyway in the 0:13:04.080 --> 0:13:06.320 modern world do not get in the vitamin D anyway 0:13:06.559 --> 0:13:08.640 because we, like I said, wait, now, we're living these 0:13:08.640 --> 0:13:11.840 lives where we're inside for nine to five in many cases, 0:13:11.880 --> 0:13:14.040 so we're not out in the open to receive that 0:13:14.160 --> 0:13:16.440 vitamin D in the quantities that we have evolved. Well. 0:13:16.480 --> 0:13:19.360 In sunscreen, actually, I know that there have been some 0:13:19.440 --> 0:13:23.360 studies about the deltarious effects of sunscreen on us in 0:13:23.520 --> 0:13:27.560 terms of our immune systems and vitamin D deficiencies and 0:13:27.600 --> 0:13:29.760 even some of the things that have been cropping up, 0:13:29.840 --> 0:13:32.240 just things like allergies and kids, things that didn't used 0:13:32.280 --> 0:13:36.480 to exist previous to like the nineteen seventies. Really because 0:13:36.480 --> 0:13:38.640 we are slathing ourselves in sunscreen, which you have to 0:13:38.640 --> 0:13:41.160 do it right, But again, if you were not really 0:13:41.160 --> 0:13:44.640 getting that exposure you need, then you can't synthesize vitamin 0:13:44.720 --> 0:13:47.000 D for yourself. Yeah, it's like you're sort of damned 0:13:47.000 --> 0:13:48.559 if you did, damned if you don't. Right, it's like, 0:13:48.600 --> 0:13:51.360 if I go out without sunscreen, I get burned. If 0:13:51.360 --> 0:13:53.240 I go out with sunscreen, then I need to take 0:13:53.320 --> 0:13:56.040 vitamin D. So it's true. It's true. You know, I 0:13:56.040 --> 0:13:57.960 think it's time to bring the sexy on in in 0:13:58.000 --> 0:14:00.160 the form of the future of skin. But we've or 0:14:00.200 --> 0:14:09.160 we do that, yes quick, all right, we're back. So 0:14:09.200 --> 0:14:13.400 we've discussed skin, how it works, what it does, what 0:14:13.520 --> 0:14:15.360 kind of goes wrong with it as we drag it 0:14:15.400 --> 0:14:17.360 into the modern age with us. But now we're gonna 0:14:17.440 --> 0:14:19.360 drag it even farther into the future with us. We're 0:14:19.360 --> 0:14:21.480 gonna take skin with us and try to imagine what 0:14:21.560 --> 0:14:24.440 our skin is going to be like in the years 0:14:24.480 --> 0:14:26.680 to come, all right, but this is really some very 0:14:26.720 --> 0:14:29.760 cool stuff that's on the horizon here. And before we 0:14:29.800 --> 0:14:32.000 go into that, I did want to mention that there 0:14:32.120 --> 0:14:34.680 is something that sounds futuristic that's already in playing. This 0:14:34.720 --> 0:14:37.520 is called spray on skin, and this is for burn victims. 0:14:37.600 --> 0:14:39.840 So I've mentioned that because we're going to talk about 0:14:39.840 --> 0:14:41.920 this stuff. And you may say, I don't know if 0:14:41.960 --> 0:14:44.280 this is going to come to fruition, but things like 0:14:44.360 --> 0:14:46.760 spray on skin, or the skin gun as it's called, 0:14:47.120 --> 0:14:49.480 also seemed like it might never come to fruition, and 0:14:49.520 --> 0:14:52.200 it certainly did. So what do we get here? Well, 0:14:52.240 --> 0:14:54.640 on the and just on the subject of skin growing 0:14:54.680 --> 0:14:58.440 and skin spraying, there's an interesting project from the front 0:14:58.480 --> 0:15:02.760 Hopper Institute of Interface Engineering and Biotechnology. They have set 0:15:02.840 --> 0:15:05.360 up a new skin factory that can supposedly produce five 0:15:05.400 --> 0:15:09.120 thousand penny sized discs of whitish translucent skin every month, 0:15:09.640 --> 0:15:12.440 and they can also do varying darker shades as well. 0:15:12.680 --> 0:15:15.720 Robots control the skin growing process, monitoring the cell broth 0:15:15.840 --> 0:15:20.240 and carefully slicing swatches to prevent infection. So this is 0:15:20.240 --> 0:15:22.040 the kind of thing we can and will use in 0:15:22.160 --> 0:15:24.520 skin grass. You know, you have situations where someone has 0:15:24.560 --> 0:15:26.760 lost skin, particularly to burns, and what do you have 0:15:26.800 --> 0:15:29.200 to do. You have to get skin from elsewhere in 0:15:29.240 --> 0:15:32.080 the body and move it forward. That's why my friend Oz, 0:15:32.320 --> 0:15:34.440 who is shot with a flaming arrow when he was 0:15:34.480 --> 0:15:38.320 a kid, because yeah, as kids do, and so he 0:15:38.360 --> 0:15:43.840 has butt skin on his shoulder he's very proud of Yeah. Yeah, 0:15:43.920 --> 0:15:46.480 I mean because a he has it, has a story 0:15:46.480 --> 0:15:50.040 about being shot with a flaming arrow, which is which 0:15:50.040 --> 0:15:51.760 is a pretty great story to have. And then he 0:15:51.800 --> 0:15:53.520 also has that you can talk about how it's his 0:15:53.600 --> 0:15:57.280 butt skin. But in other cases, skin is grafted from cadavers. 0:15:57.400 --> 0:16:00.200 Even so, in the best of circumstances that we're talking 0:16:00.200 --> 0:16:02.960 about a complex procedure that would be better suited if 0:16:02.960 --> 0:16:06.480 we just had some newly fresh grown custom skin on 0:16:06.600 --> 0:16:09.280 right hand, and that one too, if I remember correctly, 0:16:09.320 --> 0:16:11.320 they can actually add the pigment and they can change 0:16:11.320 --> 0:16:18.680 the different colors of skin. There's also something using spider silk. Yeah, yeah, 0:16:18.720 --> 0:16:22.800 the scientists in Germany are using spider silk as a biocompatible, 0:16:22.800 --> 0:16:28.000 biodegradable adhesive matrix for skin repairfold. Yeah, we talked about scaffolding. 0:16:28.040 --> 0:16:30.680 When we talked about growing organs, you really need some 0:16:30.800 --> 0:16:33.880 sort of structure that's underlying all this. So they're using 0:16:33.960 --> 0:16:38.320 dragline silk from golden orb web spiders, and they wove 0:16:38.400 --> 0:16:42.280 matrices on steel frames and seated them with fibroblasts which 0:16:42.320 --> 0:16:45.800 provided the structural background for connective tissue. And then they 0:16:45.840 --> 0:16:50.480 added skin cell progenitors and we're able to cultivate synthetic skin. Again, 0:16:50.520 --> 0:16:52.720 that's the sort of broth that you were talking about, 0:16:53.080 --> 0:16:56.040 and they were able to create dermis and epidermis, which 0:16:56.080 --> 0:16:58.440 is amazing. Now, the drawback on that is it's going 0:16:58.480 --> 0:17:01.920 to be really hard to harvest a lot of spider fibers, right, 0:17:02.520 --> 0:17:05.280 So the idea is to take these spider webs and 0:17:05.280 --> 0:17:08.520 then just sort of synthesize them and create, you know, 0:17:08.600 --> 0:17:12.080 something similar to to this natural structure. Didn't we engineer 0:17:12.280 --> 0:17:15.919 a goat that milks spiderweb or did I dream that? 0:17:17.000 --> 0:17:20.360 I'm gonna say it sounds a little surreal, a little dreamlight. 0:17:20.520 --> 0:17:22.800 I believe this was a project that some scientists were 0:17:22.800 --> 0:17:25.160 working and I have to fact check that it's projects 0:17:25.200 --> 0:17:27.280 like that that it could also be. You know, it's 0:17:27.320 --> 0:17:29.680 like we want spider webbing to serve as a scaffolding 0:17:29.720 --> 0:17:31.760 for these skin graphs. But if we could tinker with 0:17:31.800 --> 0:17:35.360 another animal to produce the spider like a goat produces 0:17:35.359 --> 0:17:37.400 spider web that has then used to grow human skin. 0:17:37.480 --> 0:17:40.160 I mean, that's that's kind of beautiful cycle of life. 0:17:41.640 --> 0:17:44.560 Matt our producer disagreed with that that's possible. I think. 0:17:44.680 --> 0:17:46.159 I think that if that's in your head, that that 0:17:46.440 --> 0:17:49.159 is real, then there is somewhere. But then there are 0:17:49.160 --> 0:17:51.560 also a number of more techie skin things that are 0:17:51.600 --> 0:17:55.480 out there developing. For instance, MT engineers have built nanoparticle 0:17:55.520 --> 0:17:59.000 tattoos and these are designed to help diabetics continuously monitor 0:17:59.040 --> 0:18:01.560 glucose levels, and this flows in with some of the 0:18:01.560 --> 0:18:03.840 technology we were discussing in our contact lenses of the 0:18:03.880 --> 0:18:06.199 gods article. The idea that you would have these a 0:18:06.240 --> 0:18:09.720 little receptors and nanotechnology in the lens that could interact 0:18:09.760 --> 0:18:12.080 with the fluids on the surface of your eye and 0:18:12.119 --> 0:18:15.160 then could signal you if something was up. Similar situation 0:18:15.160 --> 0:18:17.560 with the tattoos. You could have a tattoo in place, 0:18:18.119 --> 0:18:21.359 and you could have fluorescent dyes and sensor molecules that 0:18:21.480 --> 0:18:24.960 bind certain chemicals, and then you could flash the multiviolent 0:18:25.080 --> 0:18:27.560 light on it, and you could attact what is actually 0:18:27.560 --> 0:18:29.480 going on inside you. If you're having a right you 0:18:29.440 --> 0:18:32.560 can have an iPhone app that would send that information 0:18:32.640 --> 0:18:34.720 to a computer to be analyzed. Yeah. I know. It 0:18:34.720 --> 0:18:36.520 could be used to test for things like, you know, 0:18:36.560 --> 0:18:39.720 to help diabetics monitor GOOGLESE levels and things of that nature. Yeah. 0:18:39.800 --> 0:18:42.080 There's also something that's really cool and it is a 0:18:42.200 --> 0:18:47.320 peelable electronic circuit skin put. No, no, no, not skin put. 0:18:47.359 --> 0:18:49.400 That's a different one. I'm jumping ahead. The skin puts 0:18:49.400 --> 0:18:51.560 really cool too, though, But that can be rubbed onto 0:18:51.560 --> 0:18:54.160 the skin just like a temporary tattoo, and the small 0:18:54.200 --> 0:18:56.600 circuits can bend and stretch with the skin, and the 0:18:56.680 --> 0:19:00.440 semiconductor circuits could be used to monitor muscle activity, hard activity, 0:19:00.520 --> 0:19:03.159 or even brain waves. And you get it off just 0:19:03.200 --> 0:19:05.200 as you would temporary tattoo. You just kind of rub 0:19:05.200 --> 0:19:07.399 it off a little soap and water. Yeah, so almost 0:19:07.440 --> 0:19:11.359 like a patch, except even less intrusive. Yeah, but you 0:19:11.359 --> 0:19:15.400 mentioned skin put that I am the most excited about. Yeah. 0:19:15.440 --> 0:19:18.119 That's the project created at Carnegie mill And University and 0:19:18.200 --> 0:19:22.440 Microsoft Research. And it turns your arm or or I 0:19:22.440 --> 0:19:24.720 don't know, your back, I mean, but really anythings on 0:19:24.760 --> 0:19:27.480 the table I guess into a touch screen. So in 0:19:27.480 --> 0:19:29.160 the case of your hand, you have a small arm 0:19:29.200 --> 0:19:33.520 band and a user would project an information display onto 0:19:33.560 --> 0:19:35.520 the skin, so it would be you know, projection of 0:19:35.520 --> 0:19:38.600 say a keyboard or some sort of input display, and 0:19:38.680 --> 0:19:41.600 you would press the skin like you would an iPhone 0:19:41.680 --> 0:19:44.600 or any other touch screen. And the arm band contains 0:19:44.640 --> 0:19:48.400 an acoustic sensor that uses the tissue density and other 0:19:48.440 --> 0:19:52.440 biometric data to determine where you've tapped, So it's projecting 0:19:52.440 --> 0:19:54.639 this little keyboard onto your hand, and then the band 0:19:54.640 --> 0:19:59.600 would also detect where you're touching on that keyboard where 0:19:59.600 --> 0:20:02.280 you're on yourself. So if you think bluetooth, if you 0:20:02.320 --> 0:20:05.399 think that made everybody look insane, just wait until we 0:20:05.440 --> 0:20:08.120 get this little keyboards on our skin and we all 0:20:08.160 --> 0:20:11.639 are poking ourselves. You know that the early adopters, at 0:20:11.680 --> 0:20:13.639 least I like the idea of that using other people's 0:20:13.640 --> 0:20:15.600 backs for it, you know, because it kind of plays 0:20:15.600 --> 0:20:17.600 with the whole deal You've seen in TV shows where 0:20:17.600 --> 0:20:19.080 somebody needs to sign a paper and they would have 0:20:19.119 --> 0:20:20.600 the person in front of them lean over so they 0:20:20.640 --> 0:20:22.560 could sign on their back. Well, and I can see 0:20:22.560 --> 0:20:25.359