The Skin Were In essays

The Skin We're In essays Humans inhabit most land areas all over our earth, and each of us is different. From our hair color, skin color and body shape everyone is physically unique. Human skin color ranges from pale pink to very dark brown and every shade in between. But why are there different skin colors and what purpose did it serve in our evolution for a change in skin color? It was a long process going from hairy chimpanzee-like creatures to the much more thin haired homo-sapiens we are today, and its the purpose of this report to let you know just how it happened. Humans are among the only primates with a variance in skin color within our species. It doesnt take a great deal of observation to note that peoples with darker skin tend to naturally inhabit regions near the equator and the closer they live to either pole the lighter their skin tone. Humans have been evolving separately from our close-hairy relative for about seven million years. Chimpanzees naturally have light skin covered by thick, dark hair all over their bodies with the exception of their hands, feet and face that tend to be a darker skin with freckles and moles. It is expected that early humans began loosing hair as an adaptation for keeping cool. As our naked bodies slowly became more exposed to the damaging UV and UVB sunlight radiations, our skins began darkening, which was originally thought to be a defense against skin cancer. Skin on the thin haired parts of our body has cells that produce melanin called when exposed to UV radiation called melanocytes. Melanin acts like natures sunscreen; this is why it was originally linked to cancer prevention. Although this doesnt make much sense for our early relatives because cancers dont usually appear until older age and early man wasnt living past his twenties, so there must have been another reason our bodies lost their hair and began producing melanin. ...