by Dewan Golam Shafi Choudhury

Created on: July 29, 2008   Last Updated: April 03, 2009

If you didn't know, the skin on your body is actually an organ! Ok don't shocked you'll get it back in your head! Your skin is very important! It covers and protects your body for a lot of reasons. If you didn't have the skin, your muscles, bones and organs would be everywhere! So the skin is there to keep everything in control!

The skin is made of three layers. And each layer has an important role for your body. The outside layer is called Epidermis. It is a part of the skin you see. You might think that the epidermis is doing nothing, but actually it is working very hard. At the bottom of the epidermis, there are new cells forming. They move towards the top of the epidermis until they have reached the destination after two weeks or even a month. But they need to be ready to be able to travel. As the new born cells continue to move up, the older adult cells at the top of the epidermis die and rise to the top of the surface of your skin. The old cells are tough and strong, they cover the body to protect the body. But they eventually fall off the skin but being replaced by more older cells from the bottom. Did you know that you lose about thirty thousand to forty thousand dead skin cells in a minute of the day? God that isn't what I knew before!

So say example you have just read up to this part of my article, you have lost thirty to forty thousand cells already! Its about 4 kilograms of cells a year!

There are also cells which makes melanin, which gives your skin a colour. So if your skin was darker, it means you have more melanin inside. The cells make extra melanin when you are exposed to the sun. the melanin that cells make isn't useless. It actually protects you from the sun's ultraviolet rays. How clever don't you agree?

So if you have ever thought why your skin becomes tanned or brown when you go outside in summer while the suns burns everyone in town, its melanin which shields you by itself! But still you should wear sunscreen to keep you safe from painful sunburns. If you do protect your skin now which you should! You can prevent yourself from future skin cancer.

The layer bottom of the epidermis is the dermis. The dermis has blood vessels, sweat glands, oil glands and nerve endings.

We all feel and touch different types of objects. Like how I am typing using my keyboard and I can feel the touch of every key I'm pressing. Did you know why? Well the nerve endings in your dermis tells you how things feel when you touch them. The brain and the nervous system

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