雅思阅读Unmasking Skin.doc

Academic Reading Passage 1 AIf you took off your skin and laid it flat, it would cover an area of about twenty-one square feet, making it by far the bodys largest organ. Draped in place over our bodies, skin forms the barrier between whats inside us and whats outside. It protects us from a multitude of external forces. It serves as an avenue to our most intimate physical and psychological selves. BThis impervious yet permeable barrier, less than a millimetre thick in places, is composed of three layers. The outermost layer is the bloodless epidermis. The dermis includes collagen, elastin, and nerve endings. The innermost layer, subcutaneous fat, contains tissue that acts as an energy source, cushion and insulator for the body. CFrom these familiar characteristics of skin emerge the profound mysteries of touch, arguably our most essential source of sensory stimulation. We can live without seeing or hearing – in fact, without any of our other senses. But babies born without effective nerve connections between skin and brain can fail to thrive and may even die. DLaboratory experiments decades ago, now considered unethical and inhumane, kept baby monkeys from being touched by their mothers. It made no difference that the babies could see, hear and smell their mothers; without touching, the babies became apathetic, and failed to progress. EFor humans, insufficient touching in early years can have lifelong results. In touching cultures, adult aggression is low, whereas in cultures where touch is limited, adult aggression is high, writes Tiffany Field, director of the Touch Research Institutes at the University of Miami School of Medicine. Studies of a variety of cultures show a correspondence between high rates of physical affection in childhood and low rates of adult physical violence. FWhile the effects of touching are easy to understand, the mechanics of it are less so. Your skin has millions of nerve cells of various shapes at different depths, explains Stanley