Laura Christin Lewandowski - Itch & Ooze: Gross Stuff on Your Skin

GROSSBODYSCIENCE Itch&Ooze GROSSSTUFFONYOURSKIN WrittenbykristiLewIllustratedbyMichaelSlack To Dad thanks for soothing and medicating countless blisters, mosquito bites, and sunburns over the years. I love you. To Ethan, Ally, Nellie, Tristan, Dillon, Ryan, and Hannah -Michael Slack
blank Text copyright 2010 by Kristi Lew Illustrations copyright 2010 by Michael Slack All rights reserved. International copyright secured. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwisewithout the prior written permission of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc., except for the inclusion of brief quotations in an acknowledged review. 241 First Avenue North Minneapolis, MN 55401 U.S.A. 241 First Avenue North Minneapolis, MN 55401 U.S.A.

Website address: www.lernerbooks.com Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Lew, Kristi. Itch & ooze : gross stuff on your skin / by Kristi Lew ; illustrations by Michael Slack. p. cm. (Gross body science) Includes bibliographical references and index. bdg. : alk. paper) 1. paper) 1.

SkinDiseasesJuvenile literature. 2. SkinJuvenile literature. I. Slack, Michael H., 1969 ill. Title. III. III.

Title: Itch and ooze. RL86.L49 2010 616.5dc22 2008045591 Manufactured in the United States of America 2 BP 2/1/10

CHAPTER STRETCHY, STICKY, OFTEN ICKY THE SKIN YOURE IN Quick whats the biggest organ in your body? Is it your lungs? Nope. Your heart? Some people might say you have a big heart, but, no, thats not it. Your brain? You wish. The biggest organ in your body is your skin. And what an important organ it is! Your skin covers all the muscles, nerves, and other organs that are inside your body.

Without it, your insides would just ooze and flop out all over the place, like a big pile of bloody alien worms. What a mess that would be! How do you clean up a pile of bloody alien worms, anyway?
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No,thisisntthedesert.Itsanextremeclose-upofyourskin. Suppose you peeled the skin off an average adult. (I know, YUCK! But just imagine with me.) If you peeled off all that skin and stretched it out flat, it would be about to square feet (2 square meters). That would just about cover the hood (or roof) of a small car! And that bundle of skin would weigh about as much as a newborn baby (6 to pounds, or 2.7 to kilograms). Now, think about this: an adults brain weighs about pounds (1.4 kg).

So an adults skin weighs more than his or her brain! That doesnt surprise you? Well, youd better not mention it to the really angry, bloody pulp of an adult you just skinned! SKIN IS LAYERED... KIND OF LIKE LASAGNA THE SKIN YOURE IN IS AWESOME. It helps your body stay at the right temperature. It gives you a sense of touch too. Thats how youd know if, for instance, a cockroach crawled up your leg. And of course, skin also protects the most gooey, goopy parts of you.

It keeps your organs and tissues all together inside your body.

Theouterlayerofyourskin,theepidermis,ismadeofoverlappingdeadskincells. How does skin do all this? Well, it has a lot of parts. Skin is made up of three layers the epidermis, the dermis, and the subcutaneous layers. Each layer has an important job to do. The epidermis is the outermost layer of skin the layer you can see and feel.

Thanks to your epidermis, you can feel the wet, slimy kisses that your grandmother plants on your face. (Thanks, epidermis!) The epidermis also has another important job. It creates new skin cells. Yep, day and night, your epidermis is hard at work making new skin cells (well, whenever its not sensing big, sloppy grandma kisses). But why could you possibly need all those new skin cells? Didnt we already say your skin is your largest organ? IT IS, BUT IT HAS A PROBLEM: DEATH. Your skin cells die off faster than you can say, Uh, thanks for the kiss, Grandma!
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Inthispicture,youcanseewherethenewskincellsaremade(red).Thedead,flakingcells(brown)sitontop.

Heres the way it works. New skin cells are made on the inside of the epidermis. They slowly move toward the outside of this layer. The whole trip takes about two to four weeks. And its a pretty tough journey, because guess what? By the time they get there theyre dead! Yep, thats right. All the skin you see on the outside of your body is dead.

Luckily, these old, dead cells are tough and strong. Theyre just perfect for protecting the inside of your body. After a while, they flake off just in time to be replaced by the new dead skin. Talk about the living dead! Who knew you were walking around with a graveyard covering your body? Hope its not haunted!

Every minute of the day, you lose between thirty thousand and forty thousand dead skin cells. Every year, that adds up to almost pounds (4 kg) of dead skin that you leave behind. The layer under your epidermis is the dermis. The layer under your epidermis is the dermis.

The dermis is made up of strong, stretchy proteins called collagen and elastin. These help your skin to keep its shape. Without collagen and elastin, your skin wouldnt snap back to its original shape after it got stretched say, after you bent your knees to pedal your bike. Instead, it would just hang there and flap like nice, baggy elephant knees. Goaheadandstretchyourskin.Itwillsnaprightbackintoplace.
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Garry Turner (right) of Lincolnshire, England, has the stretchiest skin in the world.

On October 29, 1999, Turner stretched the skin on his stomach to an amazing length of 6.3 inches (16 centimeters). Turner can do this because he has a rare condition that weakens the collagen in the skin. The weakened collagen allows the skin to stretch really far and then return to its normal shape. Glands in the dermis constantly ooze sebum onto your skin. WHATS THAT? See -bum? No, its not a British expression for looking at rear ends. Its oily stuff that keeps your skin from drying out.

It also helps keep the skin waterproof. Without sebum, your body would soak up all the water in your bathtub, and youd blow up like a puffer fish. FUN!

Acrosssectionoftheskinshowstheepidermis(top),dermis(middle),andsubcutaneous(bottom)layers.Withoutfatcellsunderyourskin,youdgetmightycold!