Have you ever spent a day at the beach, and afterwards you had that mutated feeling? Yeah, it’s happened to all of us. Turns out, you done got yourself genetically modified.
UV light from the sun, particularly UVB rays, reaches your skin and is sometimes absorbed directly by your DNA. It’s very good at handling this, and 99.9% of UVB photons are instantly converted into harmless heat. But sometimes, your best isn’t good enough. It’s that 0.1% that can cause the structure of your DNA to change. Two adjacent thymine bits could bond together into a thymine dimer thingy. (gasp!) The result of this is the effect of sunburn, some handy pain indicators, and an increased production of melanin (skin pigment) to prevent more UVB damage.
The real trouble comes in when the DNA is second in line. If the UVB light photons are absorbed by the lazier, more excitable chromophore, which is much worse at diffusing the energy of the light, it could cause damage to neighbourhood DNA in a different way. A little ‘hydroxyl radical’ bonds to your DNA and it’s this process which can lead to melanoma, a less common but more deadly form of skin cancer. Interesting to note, unlike the process above, there is no pain involved. (and really, no gain either)
It should also be noted that throughout the description, I have had little to no idea what I’m talking about.
- Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunburn (including several of the more technical linked pages)
