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20 Things You Didn't Know About... Skin

Flesh-based ID tags, people with no fingerprints, and more.

By Sean Markey
Feb 6, 2007 6:00 AMJan 10, 2020 4:52 PM
shutterstock 1125973946
(Image: Shutterstock.com)

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1. It's your body's largest organ, despite what the readers of Maxim think.

2. An average adult's skin spans 21 square feet, weighs nine pounds, and contains more than 11 miles of blood vessels.

3. The skin releases as much as three gallons of sweat a day in hot weather. The areas that don't sweat are the nail bed, the margins of the lips, the tip of the penis, and the eardrums.

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