New answers tagged biophysics
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I agree with what has been said here about melanin and UV light, but I think there is a missing piece to fully understand the color variation in humans. Otherwise everyone would have just black skin and problem solved.
One of the counterparts appears to be the conversion of Vitamin D to an active form, that requires the action of sunlight. This trade-off ...
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Yes, it is true that the hotter the sun, the darker people's skin becomes (in general) because of the evolutionary advantage conferred by having melanin to protect against UV light. The reason a dark object like an asphalt road gets hot quickly is that colors like black absorb most wavelengths of light, and therefore absorb more energy in the form of thermal ...
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It isn't about heat but ultraviolet light. Melanin is the pigment that makes our skin colour whatever it is and in darker skin there's more melanin. Melanin dissipates UV, which otherwise would cause skin cancer as it introduces mutations into DNA. Melanin production is stimulated by UV so that's why tanning beds work, our body senses the danger and responds ...
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