(no subject)

[hatam_soferet]

All right, y'all biochem people - help me understand tanning. You get a skin, and you put it in a lime solution. The lime solution makes follicles very unhappy, and eventually the hairs drop out. Why? What's happening? If the lime is exploding the cells holding the hairs in, why isn't it exploding the cells in the rest of the skin? and if it isn't, what is it doing? Are epidermal cells more susceptible to being exploded by lime? It's been so jolly long since A-level chemistry, and we didn't do tanning, anyway. livredor, pseudomonas, help...please!

While we're at it, if I want to split a skin in the plane of the skin, so as to get two thin skins from one thick skin, what's the word describing "in the plane?" I split the skin *****ly. Planarly is not a word.

ETA: Jordan says "laminally" is the word, and Chambers agrees with him. Thanks, Jordan!