Great White Reuben

Aaron Reuben and I have been working hard to get a garden set up. Thanks to a little negligence on our parts Reuben has developed a pretty healthy farmer's tan. To stave off a full on red neck and the family disposition to skin cancer I've started slathering Reuben in sun screen before we go outside. I try to explain to him that while his lily white skin is good for nothing in the sun, he might be slightly more effective at producing vitamin D if he ever finds himself trapped in the arctic regions for a long period. Reuben doesn't seem to appreciate this info or the sun screen.

But I find the science of pigmentation pretty interesting, mainly because white skin seems so useless, even harmful. Several of my fair skinned loved ones have developed damaging skin cancer making me wonder how light skin worked well enough to survive the evolutionary winnowing process. I've read a few articles on the subject. While skin pigmentation is complex process involving activating enzymes and complex molecular activity that gets way too technical for me to understand, more basic articles like The Biology of Skin Color give some interesting explanations on the evolutionary developments that affected human coloration. It also mentions that women exposed to too much sunlight early in pregnancy, usually through self subjected tanning sessions, had higher rates of neural tube defects in their children. And men who got too much sun also found themselves with some unfortunate consequences. So there's another reason to feel okay with being pasty.

Anyway, we have to work with what we're given. And in Reuben's case that means he also needs to work with a lot of sun screen.