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The Science of Melanin, Middle school

Video of a squid gliding through the water of an aquarium

Squids squirt a cloud of dark ink when a predator comes close. Your hair gets its color from a pigment called melanin.

Could squid ink and your hair get their color from the same kind of pigment?

The Science of Melanin Magic

Melanin is a family of pigments that gives color to skin, hair and eyes. Dr. Raven Baxter explains three kinds of melanin and what each kind does. She also shows how squids, fungi and other living things use melanin.

Three hands with different skin tones pressed against a white wall
Melancholy, a word for deep sadness, comes from Greek words meaning “black bile.”

Your word of the day is

MEL-uh-nin

melan-blackfrom Greek mélās
-inan ending for names of chemicalsfrom New Latin -ina

A family of natural pigments that give color to skin, hair, eyes, feathers and more.

A woman with bright red curly hair and freckles

Melanin comes in three main kinds. Eumelanin makes brown and black colors. Pheomelanin makes red and yellow colors. Neuromelanin is found in the brain.

Which kind of melanin gives red hair its red color?

Drawing of the layers of human skin, with a close-up of the top layer showing squamous cells, basal cells and melanocytes

Each melanocyte passes melanin to about 36 skin cells. In each cell, the melanin forms a cap over the DNA.

How does melanin from a melanocyte help protect nearby skin cells from the sun?

Three smiling women with different skin tones standing close together indoors

Light skin and dark skin have about the same number of melanocytes.

What makes one person’s skin darker than another person’s skin?

Video of a squid swimming over a coral reef in clear blue water

Squids squirt dark ink when a predator attacks.

How could a dark cloud of ink help a squid escape from a predator?

Four women seen from behind with different hair colors and textures

Hair color comes from melanin made by melanocytes.

How can melanocytes, all the same kind of cell, make black hair, blond hair or red hair?

A school of reef squid swimming above a coral reef off American Samoa

Lesson complete

Today’s word

melanin

MEL-uh-nin

A family of natural pigments that give color to skin, hair, eyes, feathers and more.

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Sources
  1. Shosuke Ito, Sandra Del Bino, Tomohisa Hirobe and Kazumasa Wakamatsu, at Fujita Health University, L’Oréal Research and Innovation and Shinjuku Skin Clinic, International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 2020
  2. Shosuke Ito and Kazumasa Wakamatsu, Fujita Health University, Journal of the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology, 2011
  3. Michaela Brenner and Vincent Hearing, National Cancer Institute, Photochemistry and Photobiology, 2008
  4. Meredith and Riesz, University of Queensland, Photochemistry and Photobiology, 2004
  5. Erin Wolf Horrell, Mary Boulanger and John D’Orazio, University of Kentucky, Frontiers in Genetics, 2016
  6. Karen Grønskov, Jakob Ek and Karen Brondum-Nielsen, Kennedy Center, Denmark, Orphanet Journal of Rare Diseases, 2007
  7. Sandra Del Bino, Shosuke Ito, Juliette Sok and Kazumasa Wakamatsu, at L’Oréal Research and Innovation and Fujita Health University, Pigment Cell and Melanoma Research, 2022
  8. Commo, Gaillard and Bernard, L’Oréal Recherche, British Journal of Dermatology, 2004
  9. Luigi Zecca and colleagues, PNAS, 2004
  10. Svenja Esser, Maximilian Hausherr and colleagues, Ruhr University Bochum, Biomedicines, 2025
  11. Charles Derby, Georgia State University, Marine Drugs, 2014
  12. Radames Cordero and Arturo Casadevall, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Fungal Biology Reviews, 2017
  13. Agnieszka Zdybicka-Barabas, Sylwia Stączek, Magdalena Kunat-Budzyńska and colleagues, Maria Curie-Skłodowska University, International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 2025
  14. Vision and Change core concepts and competencies, as summarized in Brownell and others, CBE Life Sciences Education, 2014
  15. Word origins and formulas from Dictionary.com: melanin, melano-, -in, eumelanin, pheomelanin, neuromelanin, melanocyte, -cyte, eu-, neuro-, melancholy, melanoma, keratin, euphony, tyrosine, cysteine, pyrrole, thiazole
  16. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, “A Happy Occasion for Melencolia I”
  17. Spanish and French spellings from Wiktionary
  18. Transcript from the English captions uploaded with the YouTube video