About Your Skin - Issue 26 : Color
▻http://nautil.us/issue/26/color/about-your-skin
Skin may seem like a superficial human attribute, but it’s the first thing we notice about anyone we meet. Nina Jablonski came to this realization many years ago when she was teaching a human anatomy class to young medical students in Hong Kong. When faced with dissecting a dead body, they flinched at the thought of cutting into or even touching it. But they lost their inhibitions once they opened up the cadaver. Without skin, the corpse no longer looked human. Jablonski got hooked on all things related to human skin. As a primatologist and paleobiologist, she wanted to understand why humans—alone among the primates—evolved to become the naked ape, and why skin comes in so many different hues and shades around the world. Once she started investigating the science of skin color, Jablonski (...)