Mikaela writes:
Last night driving home, I heard the NPR story about the experimental tanning cream that induces an actual tan -- it's not a dye -- it triggers your skin cells to tan as though they've been in the sun. Here's a quote from the Harvard researcher:
"I will confess I suspected we might see some darkening," says Fisher. "But I was fairly shocked that it was as efficient and complete as what we actually saw."
After several weeks, of applying every day, the mice became really tan.
Fisher was surprised at how dark. "Seriously brown, dark brown, and even black," he says. "It [was] difficult to distinguish from mice born with dark skin."
Suddenly, I'm having visions of people choosing their skin color, getting darker or lighter for ... a party, for a business meeting, for a mortgage application meeting?
Once the barrier to be different colors is removed, maybe the new fad will be patterns -- the all-over skin tatoo (remember falling asleep on the beach reading a book and getting an embarrassing sunburn all around its edges?).
It's Dr. Seuss' Sneetches all over again. You remember the story. (I had it on a record, with Horton Hatches the Egg.) Mr. Sylvester McMonkey McBean, the fix-it-up chappy, comes to town with a new machine to put blue stars on bellies. Half the sneetches line up and pay. But then all the Sneetches want stars, so they all get stars, but then having a star is blase, so Mr. Sylvester McMonkey McBean fixes up his machine to remove the blue stars for even more money. This cycle goes on and on until no one has any money, and Mr. McBean leaves town. The Sneeches realize:
- "neither the Plain nor the Star-Bellies knew
- Whether this one was that one or that one was this one.
- Or which one was what one or what one was who."
Could it ever happen with skin color? We just took a giant step toward "Go" and rest assured companies are signing up to collect their $200.Now if we could only invent a religion machine... then where would our prejudices be?
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