Commenters refine the article's DNA-damage explanation
2 Yesterday 5:43 PM · 1d ago · 6 comments · 1 source · development 2 of 4
HN users add biological detail on thymine dimerization rates and push back on the article's framing of how damaged cells trigger sunburn symptoms.
“If you're in the sun, each skin cell gets 50-100 of these pairs created per second (which is much higher than I expected).”
kensevakhoury Hacker News submitterkens HN commenterTerr_ HN commenterEA-3167 HN commenter
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What people said 6 voices · verbatim
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> Sunburn is triggered when your DNA is damaged from light absorption [...] This interferes with protein synthesis and wreaks havoc in your body over timeNot a skin-scientist, but this seems misleading: Sunburn is not caused by some bad DNA floating around, nor damaged cells making making mistakes or pumping out wrong proteins to inflame their…
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The details of UV damage are interesting. You can think of DNA as a sequence of four letters: C, G, A, and T. If there are two neighboring T's, UV can move a bond, linking the two T's together (i.e. thymine dimerization). If you're in the sun, each skin cell gets 50-100 of these pairs created per second (which is much higher than I expected)…
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Does anyone know how UV indexes reported by weather apps (including forecasts) work?I've found that some sources report lower UV index on cloudy days, whereas some seem to indicate the same index as a sunny day.It's not clear if these sources all have a different model for UV, some being more sophisticated or conservative, and whether any of them…
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I am curious if anyone else can tell whether it is a high UV day just by looking outside.There is a certain look to the sky (slightly whiter-bluer) looking against the clouds, and I am not sure if it is because I am directly seeing UV, whether there is some fluorescence, or whether it’s placebo effect.
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I think I got the worst sunburns when I didn't feel hot at all.Usually, it involves water, water cools you down, so you don't feel the heat, but it doesn't block UV, so you don't get the warning.
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This whole article shouldn't even exist, and should just point to wikipedia or mayo clinic.
All 4 developments of HN blog post explains why sunlight's warmth doesn't predict… →
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