News tagged with skin
Light-induced delivery of nitric oxide eradicates drug-resistant bacteria
Researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, have developed a novel approach for eradicating drug-resistant bacteria from wounds and skin infections, using light to trigger the controlled release of nitric oxide. ...
May 30, 2012 |
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A super tiny giraffe (w/ Video)
Shaahin Amini was ready to quit. The Ph.D. student at the University of California, Riverside's Bourns College of Engineering had spent three hours looking into a microscope scanning a maze of black-and-white crosshatched ...
May 30, 2012 |
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Office bacteria all around us, especially in men's offices
Men's offices have significantly more bacteria than women's, and the office bacterial communities of New York and San Francisco are indistinguishable, according to a study published May 30 in the open access journal PLoS ON ...
May 30, 2012 |
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Researchers turn skin cells into neural precusors, bypassing stem-cell stage
Mouse skin cells can be converted directly into cells that become the three main parts of the nervous system, according to researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine. The finding is an extension of a previous ...
Jan 30, 2012 |
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Sunscreen ingredient may pose skin cancer risk, researchers find
(Phys.org) -- As vacationers prepare to spend time outdoors this summer, many of them will pack plenty of sunscreen in hopes it will protect their bodies from overexposure, and possibly from skin cancer. But researchers at ...
Nanotechnology / Nanomaterials
May 08, 2012 |
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Spandex manufacturer makes elastic electrical cable (w/ video)
(PhysOrg.com) -- Japanese company Asahi Kasei Fibers, which manufactures spandex and other textiles, has applied its knowledge of stretchable materials to make stretchable elastic power and USB cables.
Dec 02, 2011 |
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British team devises method for separating carbon nanotubes cheaply
(PhysOrg.com) -- When single walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) are made, they come out in both metallic and semiconducting material form. Unfortunately, different applications require one or the other of these ...
Nanotechnology / Nanomaterials
Jan 19, 2012 |
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New plastics 'bleed' when cut or scratched — and then heal like human skin
A new genre of plastics that mimic the human skin's ability to heal scratches and cuts offers the promise of endowing cell phones, laptops, cars and other products with self-repairing surfaces, scientists reported today. ...
Mar 26, 2012 |
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Researchers convert skin and umbilical cord cells directly into nerve cell
Until recently, the production of pluripotent "multipurpose" stem cells from skin cells was considered to be the ultimate new development. In the meantime, it has become possible to directly convert cells ...
Apr 11, 2012 |
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Amazing skin gives sharks a push
Shark skin has long been known to improve the fish's swimming performance by reducing drag, but now George Lauder and Johannes Oeffner from Harvard University show that in addition, the skin generates thrust, ...
Feb 09, 2012 |
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Somatic stem cells obtained from skin cells for first time ever
Breaking new ground, scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Biomedicine in Münster, Germany, have succeeded in obtaining somatic stem cells from fully differentiated somatic cells. Stem ...
Mar 22, 2012 |
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MRSA in livestock acquired drug resistance on the farm, now infects humans
Researchers have discovered that a strain of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacteria that humans contract from livestock was originally a human strain, but it developed resistance to antibiotics once i ...
Feb 21, 2012 |
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Epigenetic signatures direct the repair potential of reprogrammed cells
A research team has identified epigenetic signatures, markers on DNA that control transient changes in gene expression, within reprogrammed skin cells. These signatures can predict the expression of a wound-healing protein ...
Mar 14, 2012 |
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Scientists identify novel approach to view inner workings of viruses
Since the discovery of the microscope, scientists have tried to visualize smaller and smaller structures to provide insights into the inner workings of human cells, bacteria and viruses. Now, researchers at the National Institute ...
Jan 12, 2012 |
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Human skin yields stem cell-like cells
Researchers from the UCLA School of Dentistry investigating how stem cells can be used to regenerate dental tissue have discovered a way to produce cells with stem cell-like characteristics from the most common type of human ...
Dec 02, 2011 |
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Skin
The skin is the outer covering of the body. In humans, it is the largest organ of the integumentary system made up of multiple layers of mesodermal tissues, and guards the underlying muscles, bones, ligaments and internal organs. Skin of a different nature exists in amphibians, reptiles, birds. Human skin is not unlike that of most other mammals except that it is not protected by a pelt and appears hairless though in fact nearly all human skin is covered with hair follicles. The adjective cutaneous literally means "of the skin" (from Latin cutis, skin).
Because it interfaces with the environment, skin plays a key role in protecting (the body) against pathogens and excessive water loss. Its other functions are insulation, temperature regulation, sensation, synthesis of vitamin D, and the protection of vitamin B folates. Severely damaged skin will try to heal by forming scar tissue. This is often discolored and depigmented.
In humans, skin pigmentation varies among populations, and skin type can range from dry to oily. Such skin variety provides a rich and diverse habit for bacteria which number roughly a 1000 species from 19 phyla.
For more information about Skin, read the full article at
Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
