the.com/skin
your largest organ, a self-repairing leather suit you never asked to wear
means The flexible outer covering of the body, or by extension the outer layer or surface of anything from fruit to drums to interfaces.
from From Old Norse 'skinn,' meaning hide or pelt — the word brought over by Norse settlers, originally describing the flayed covering of an animal. It gradually pushed aside the older native English word 'hide,' which survives but now leans toward animals and toughness. The animal-pelt sense lingers in expressions like 'saving your skin' and 'by the skin of your teeth.'
- total weight
- about 8 pounds, your heaviest single organ
- full reboot
- entirely replaced roughly every month
- shed cells
- sheds 30,000-40,000 dead cells per minute
- house dust
- much of it is your own dead skin
- square footage
- covers around 22 square feet unfolded
dermis — the layer beneath epidermis containing collagen, blood vessels, and nerve endings in all mammals
stratum corneum — outermost dead skin layer humans shed 30,000-40,000 cells per minute
melanin — pigment produced by melanocytes that determines human skin color across all populations