Category Kids Queries

Once you reach adulthood, your skin stops growing. It loses its elasticity, taking a little longer to spring back into shape when you laugh or furrow your brow. Wrinkles form as your skin starts to sag in old age. A lifetime of smiling leaves wrinkles alongside your eyes (called ‘’crow’s feet’’).

UV light breaks down the collagen and elastin fibers in the skin. These fibers form the skin’s connective tissue. They are located under the surface of the skin, and they support the skin. Breaking down this layer causes the skin to become weaker and less flexible. The skin starts to droop, and wrinkles appear.

Clothes that cover the body, such as hats and long sleeves, may delay the development of wrinkles.

People who work in the sunlight have a higher chance of early wrinkles. Jobs that involve this type of exposure include fishing and farming. Sailors, golfers, beach lifeguards, and gardeners may also be more prone to skin aging.

Regular smoking accelerates the aging process of skin, because of the reduced blood supply to the skin. Alcohol dehydrates the skin, and dry skin is more likely to wrinkle.

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Special cells in your follicles – your body’s hair-producing factories – produce melanin, the pigment responsible for your hair’s color. These cells begin to die as you age, leaving your hair white or gray. As with baldness, the age at which you begin to gray is determined by your genetics. If your parents had gray hair in their mid-30s or 40s, chances are you will, too.

Gray hair is more noticeable in people with darker hair because it stands out, but people with naturally lighter hair are just as likely to go gray. From the time a person notices a few gray hairs, it may take more than 10 years for all of that person’s hair to turn gray.

Some people think that a big shock or trauma can turn a person’s hair white or gray overnight, but scientists don’t really believe that this happens. Just in case, try not to freak out your parents too much. You don’t want to be blamed for any of their gray hairs.

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More than half of all men at some point in their lives will lose their locks to ‘’male-pattern baldness,’’ a genetic condition inherited from either Mom or Dad. High amounts of a particular hormone (or chemical in their body) cause hair follicles on the head to wither and die.

Illnesses, medications, and primping habits can spur hair loss. But the most common cause? Androgenic alopecia (aka male and female pattern baldness). This leads to defective hair-producing follicles on the scalp.

Over time, they lose their ability to function. The begin producing thin hair for women and for men, eventually no hair at all. Most can thank their parents for that hair loss.

Pattern baldness in largely genetic. The primary baldness gene is found on the X chromosome. This comes from the mother, but don’t blame it all on her! Other factors can come into play as well.

Studies found that men with bald fathers are more likely to go bald. Hats, hair products, and washing your hair a lot won’t cause balding. But you should be careful with teasing combs and hair irons. Using these could speed up the balding process.

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A french women named Jeanne Calment lived 122 years and 164 days, making her the world’s oldest human at the time of her passing in 1997 (according to Guinness World Records). She credited her routine snacking on chocolate (among other things) for her amazing life span. Meanwhile, a Bolivian man named Carmelo Flores Laura may have surpassed Calment’s record. Government documents show that Flores was born in 1890 – which would make him older than Calment when she passed away. Flores didn’t have his original birth certificate, though, casting doubt on his true age. He died in 2014.

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The aging process is a real head-scratcher for scientists. Healthy humans are capable of healing their injuries, recovering from illnesses, and replicating their cells again and again. Why can’t this process continue forever? Old age and death are hardly helpful to our species’ survival, after all. Scientists have studied nearly every type of animal – from short-lived fruit flies to age-defying flatworms – to unravel this mystery.

According to one theory, our life span is programmed into our DNA, which jump-starts the aging process once we’re beyond our reproductive years. (Scientists tinkering with the age-related genes in some worms have been able to dramatically increase their life spans.) Another theory holds that your cells have a sort of expiration date and can only reproduce so many times. Some scientists believe that the longer you live, the more damage your body racks up. Eventually, the ‘’human machine’’ becomes so bogged down with glitches that it can no longer repair itself properly. Likely, a combination of these theories can explain the aging process. Our life span is also affected by many factors outside our bodies. How we eat, where we live – even whether we marry – can influence our body’s expiration date.

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In this case, gross is good! Your ear canal secretes this waxy stuff to collect and clear out other crud: dust, dirt, and germs. Eventually the wax, along with its nasty cargo, works its way out of your ear canal.

Some people are prone to produce too much earwax. Still, excess wax doesn’t automatically lead to blockage. In fact, the most common cause of earwax blockage is at-home removal. Using cotton swabs, bobby pins, or other objects in your ear canal can also push wax deeper, creating a blockage.

You’re also more likely to have wax buildup if you frequently use earphones. They can inadvertently prevent earwax from coming out of the ear canals and cause blockages.

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