Drowning in skin.

So basically, dust is gross. Most people know that dust is composed partially of dead, exfoliated skin cells that are just kind of floating around in the atmosphere. And since the thought of your ancestors blowing the breeze isn't gross enough, I'm going to try to gross you out even more, with science.

The average adult human has enough skin to cover up 2 square meters (if you skinned him and laid his hide out like a pelt), and that weighs approximately 20 pounds. Fun fact: you will exfoliate approximately 8 pounds of dead skin cells every year. By bypassing some simple mathematical, scientific, and common sense laws we can know that 8 pounds of skin would cover up about .8 square meters.

So the question here today is: how long would it take for there to be so much dead skin that it would cover up the whole surface of the world? To start off this discussion, I'd like to bring up the fact that after all this time we haven't started having to use snow plows to keep the streets clean of our little tiny dead cells that have been piling up. There are three reasons for this, two of which are pretty gross.

The first reason is dust mites. These little tiny creatures feed off of your dead flesh. There's really not a lot else I'd like to say about them, but really all you need to know is that they're tiny and disgusting. Also they look like this.

The second reason may or may not make you gag. You're constantly breathing in hundreds of thousands of deceased epidermis particles which are being destroyed inside of your body. You're eating yourself, and lots of other people in the world. Cannibal. Sick cannibal freak.

The third reason is all but too simple: since the exfoliated cells are dead, they will eventually decay.

Because of these facts, we will be working in theoretical boundaries. If everyone in the world held their breath, all the dust mites simultaneously expired Avengers style, and the skin cells that are already dead ceased to decay, how long would it take before the entire earth was coated in "dust"?

Earth is pretty dang big, sitting pretty at 510 million (510,000,000) square kilometers. Since one kilometer is one thousand meters, 510 million kilometers is 510 billion (510,000,000,000) square meters.

There are approximately 7 billion (7,000,000,000) people on earth. In a year, all of those 7 billion people would exfoliate 5.6 billion square meters of dead skin. (7 billion multiplied by .8.)

510 billion divided by 5.6 is 91.07142857142857. This number, which I'll just call 91, because it is basically 91 for all intents and purposes, is the number of years of exfoliation it would take by 7 billion individuals to cover the earth in dead skin cells.

Okay, we covered the earth. Now what?

Well there's a problem. Assuming a large portion of those cells didn't get sucked into the sea and they just kind of floated on top, we've only created a layer of dead skin about an eighth of an inch thick. I want people to be drowning in skin. I want there to be people pushing themselves around in canoes trying to get from place to place. How long would it take for there to be a layer of skin 7 feet deep?

To make an inch, it would take 91 years x 8 (assuming the coating of "dust" was 1/8th of an inch thick). 728 years.
To make it to a foot, it would take 728 years x 12. 8,736 years.
To make it to seven feet, it would be 8736 x 7. 61,152 years.

By the time 61,152 years passed, all of that skin would weigh in at 489,216 pounds, which is only slightly smaller than Tony Stark's ego.

I kind of wish I could say there was a point to this, but there really isn't. I just hope you're grossed out now after thinking about dead skin for that long. To be completely honest, it kind of makes me feel uncomfortable and dirty.

Until next time, kids!