Sunburn Essay

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The sun is crucial to the survival of human species. It produces energy for us to grow food, get warmth, light and photosynthesis. Although there are many beneficial factors about the sun, there are some harmful things that it can do to life on earth. One of the harmfull things that the sun produces is a sunburn. A sunburn is the skin's defense to exposure to ultraviolet light (UV light). Often after a sunburn a person will experience redness, blistering, swelling headaches and dehydration . UV light is “ part of the electromagnetic (light) spectrum that reaches the earth from the sun.” There are two rays of UV light that are the main causes of sunburns, both of which are too small for the human eye to see. The first UV light is ultraviolet A (UVA). UVA prematurely ages the skin, causes wrinkling and can travel through glass. UVA is able to travel through glass because of it’s long wavelength (although the wave length is still not long enough for the human eye to see). The second light, UVB has a smaller wavelength and causes the actual burning of the skin. …show more content…

Sunscreen is a lotion (sometimes a spray or gel) that is a combination of several organic and non-organic ingredients. The non-organic ingredients like, zinc oxide or titanium oxide make the UV light reflect or bounce off of the skin whilst the organic ingredients such as “octyl methoxycinnamate (OMC) or oxybenzone” absorb the UV light and therefore take away the heat. Franz Greiter is considered to be the inventor of sunscreen after bringing it to a market in the mid 1960’s. Although, there have been earlier appearances of sunscreen found “Ancient Greeks used olive oil for this purpose, and ancient Egyptians used extracts of rice, jasmine, and lupine plants whose products are still used in skin care today.” (source

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