Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
From the brains behind Brains On, this is the Moment of Um. Moment of Um comes to you from APM Studios. I'm Smash Dandy Boot. I've been a movie stunt double for almost 10 years. That means I've jumped out of planes, slid down stairs, and crashed out windows. I've always tried to be as safe as possible, but over the years I've collected a few injuries.
The scars those ouchies leave behind are ways to remember and improve my stunt techniques. Here, see the scar on my shoulder? I got this one driving a motor scooter into a cactus patch for Desert Desperado.
And this one here over my eyebrow? That one was from walking into a tree branch on the set of Megaspace Monkeys. It wasn't a stunt. I was just walking to our outdoor set and I didn't look where I was going. And this one? Here on the left side of my butt? Oof. Well, that one's from a bonfire scene in Beach Blazers that I'd prefer not to discuss in detail. Anyway, my collection of scars is like a diary of all my stunts.
But that makes me wonder, why do I still have all my scars? Why don't they heal and go away? My buddy Noah wanted to know about this too. So let's see what an expert has to say. Hi, my name is Dr. Liz Farhat and I'm a dermatologist. And that means that I'm a doctor who specializes in skin.
If you get a small paper cut, your body will heal the area over without scarring. But if you get a larger injury or have surgery, the deeper layers of the skin are actually damaged. So the body has to send tissue to repair the skin over. The first step in repairing the area is a material called fibrin, which forms a scaffolding.
And there's cells in the skin called fibroblasts that work to fill in the scaffolding to make something called an extracellular matrix, which we think of kind of like cement. The body then fills in this area with a material called collagen. Now these fibers are thicker and that's what makes scar tissue.
Because the scar tissue is made up of those thicker collagen fibers, we can never go back to regular skin again. And so you will have a scar that will be more sensitive, itchy, or even painful. And with time, your body will contract the scar down and this will fade with time.
It's just like if you cut a piece of paper and tape it back together, you'll always have a little line where the paper was cut even after you repair it with tape. It's never going to be as strong as it initially was. Whoa, skin is super cool. If you get a deep cut or have surgery where you get stitches, your body gets working on healing you up right away. It puts down the special stuff called fibrin.
And that helps hold the edges of the cut together while the body works on building a bridge over the cut with stuff called collagen. Collagen is different from regular skin cells. It's tougher and thicker. So once the cut is fully healed, the place where the injury was will still be thicker and a different color from the skin around it. But the skin won't ever heal back to its original strength and smoothness. Good to know. Guess I gotta make sure I'm extra padded so I don't collect more scars.
Or I could retire, take up painting or gardening or something. If you like this episode, take a second to subscribe to Moment of Um wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you want to know about the science of giggles and guffaws, check out the Brains On podcast where we have a whole episode all about why we laugh.
Want to see our show come to life? Head to YouTube where we've got awesome animated Brains On episodes. Search Brains On Universe on YouTube and subscribe. If you have a question, we'd love to help you answer. Drop us a line by going to brainson.org slash contact.
Moment of Um is produced by Molly Bloom, Rachel Brees, Rosie DuPont, Anna Goldfield, Ruby Guthrie, Mark Sanchez, Anna Weigel, Nico Gonzalez-Whistler, and Aaron Moldeslossi. We had editing help from Sheila Farzan and Zandon Totten, and engineering help from Alex Simpson. Our theme song is by Mark Sanchez. Our executive producer is Beth Perlman. The executives in charge of APM Studios are Chandra Kavati and Joanne Griffith.
Special thanks this week go to Christine Solomon, Jingme O'Connor, and Liz Farhat. See you next time, and the next day, and every weekday. Until then, um... Ooh, I could learn how to bake sourdough. Or get really into collecting vinyl records. Or make jam. Or do needlepoint.
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