Talk:Human skin color/Archives/2009/September

retain heat

Men with lighter skin/hair/eye color can retain heat than either men with darker skin/hair/eye color or women with any skin/hair/eye color. Because men with lighter skin/hair/eye color are bigger and stockier than either men with darker skin/hair/eye color or women with any skin/hair/eye color. Nagara373 05:21, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

I couldn't find the reason why light skins retain heat better than dark ones so I'm asking you to give me more info about your reference, like: some physical or chemical explanation, because I can't check any of that (I have no sources to answer my question apart from wikipedia...), is it something recently proven, who proved it, any other info that could help me understand would do. Till now I always heard that dark skin (like any dark body actually) absorbed more radiations in general (which is why those bodies are black, they do not render light...). There is also the fact that melanin transforms the UV radiation into heat, which would produce extra heat in any person that has extra melanin... If I'm wrong it might be due to a misunderstanding in the retain/absorb and heat concepts... thanks for answering. Sinekonata (talk) 08:16, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Changes over lifespan?

Leaving aside exceptional cases like Michael Jackson, what is known about changes in skin coloration over an individual's lifespan? I know that infants of African descent are often born with fairly pale skin, which darkens over the first few months of their lives. And I believe that old people's skin sometimes lightens, but I'm not sure whether that's due to lessened exposure to sunlight or something else. Is there any scientific account of these changes in skin coloration? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 20:25, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, write about vitiligo. There was also a American Black author, who after fighting for civil rights, suffered a melanin loss and was considered white by the local youths. --Error (talk) 23:08, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Is it true that "all human skin color is on a scale of brown"?

The lede should summarize the article, yet this unsourced claim, made in the first sentence, is never subsequently developed (or mentioned at all). Several questions come to mind: What is the source of this brown coloration when melanin is absent (as in the case of albinos)? Are skin cells themselves slightly brownish? The article doesn't explain this. Someone who has little melanin—but considerable pink coloring from pheomelanin and from hemoglobin—may not appear brown at all to the naked eye (even though a microscopic examination would reveal scattered particles of melanin). If you matched this person's skin color in paint, and painted your kitchen that color, nobody would call the color a shade of brown; we usually decide what color something is according to what the eye sees. Certain areas of some people's skin are deep pink (nipples, lips, ears, sometimes whole faces); is this not considered human skin? In short, the claim that all human skin is on a scale of brown seems an oversimplification. Ewulp (talk) 07:00, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

you are exactly right. --dab (𒁳) 08:18, 17 September 2009 (UTC)