Crossword: From communicating to protecting, the skin is an amazing organ

Take a look at your skin – this thin layer of tissue is our body’s best defence against diseases and infection. But did you know it renews itself, and also helps us communicate?

Click start to play today’s Crossword, where you can find ‘skin’ in one of the answers to the clues provided.

Here are some facts about this remarkable part of our body that you may not know:

1. It’s our largest organ

The skin makes up about 15 per cent of your bodyweight. This means the average human being carries around roughly 10kg of skin, which stretches out to two square metres. The skin has two main layers – the outer epidermis, which is as thin as a sheet of paper, and the dermis, which lies beneath. The dermis has over 17km of blood vessels, and is responsible for giving the skin its shape, plumpness and elasticity, for regulating body temperature by retaining or releasing heat, and for hosting sensitive nerve receptors.

2. It renews itself every month

Our paper-thin epidermis gets scratched, stretched and squeezed thousands of times a day, but it doesn’t easily wear out. This is because the skin wall is constantly being replenished with new, living bricks called keratinocytes. Made of keratin, a tough protein that also forms our nails and hair, and the claws and horns of animals, these cells are extremely strong. The keratinocytes are formed in the deepest layer of the epidermis and then slowly move up over a period of a month, until they form a solid barrier, before flaking off into the atmosphere.

3. Midnight snacks could lead to sunburn

According to a report in the US-based science news website Science Focus, recent studies have shown that skin cells contain complex internal clocks that run on a 24-hour rhythm. During the night, skin cells grow rapidly, to prepare and protect our outer barrier in the coming day. Then in the day time, the cells selectively switch on genes that help protect the skin against the sun’s UV (ultraviolet) rays. A 2017 study in the journal Cell Reports found, however, that if we eat late at night, our skin’s clock assumes it must be dinnertime and so, pushes back the activation of UV protection genes – leaving us more exposed to the sun’s harmful effects the next day. So, the skin benefits from additional sleep just as much as the rest of our body does.

4. The impact of nose-skin communication

Our dermis is capable of pumping out an enormous volume of sweat to cool the body down. But a specific type of sweat, from the apocrine glands in the armpits and groin areas have a specific purpose. Through them, humans are able to detect their partner’s ‘odour print’. A June 1995 study in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B found that sniffing the t-shirt of a loved one can trigger happy memories and reduce stress levels. It was even found that women are more attracted to the sweat of men with dissimilar immune genes, a skin-nose communication that may help humans diversify their offsprings’ immune systems.

5. The benefit of blushing

When you’re embarrassed and turn the colour of a ripe tomato, you might feel as though others can see through your skin into your mind. While on the face of it, blushing doesn’t seem to have any real function, recent research suggests that it may have a positive social purpose. A 2009 study in the American journal Emotion found that if someone blushes after making a mistake, they are viewed in a more favourable light than someone who doesn’t blush. Perhaps it's a signal to others that we recognise a social norm has been broken, and it’s a sincere apology for a faux pas.

What do you think of the skin’s amazing range of function? Play today’s Crossword and tell us at games@gulfnews.com.