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I have been reading a little about the size of cells and was curious as to how s

ID: 30688 • Letter: I

Question

I have been reading a little about the size of cells and was curious as to how small they really were.

I have noticed that on my finger, the outlines of the fingerprint are made up of thin lines. In fact, some of them are so thin that I have difficulty imagining anything thinner I can make out with the naked eye.

I have read that the naked eye has a resolution of 0.1 millimeters = 100 micrometers, whereas eukaryotic cells range in diameter of 10 - 100 micrometers.

Putting this information together, would it be reasonable to conclude that the lines on my fingers have a width ranging from 1 - 10 skin cells? Is there any satisfactory method to verify this without fancy equipment? Is it even true?

P.S.

Are there also more scientific names for these "finger lines" so that I can look it up somewhere? Googling "finger lines" brings up a lot of stuff about palm reading.

Explanation / Answer

I am not sure that this can be accurately estimated because the outer layer of skin is ill-defined in terms of cells and cell boundaries. The outer layer or epidermis is composed of dead cells and dead cell parts that is tough and interconnected by design. Individual cells are not readily discernible.

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