Goose bumps

Goose Bumps

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Goose bumps

Goose bumps, also called goose flesh, goose pimples, chill bumps, or the medical term cutis anserina, are the bumps on a person's skin

Skin

The skin is the outer covering of the body, also known as the epidermis. It is the largest organ of the integumentary system made up of multiple layers of epithelial biological tissue, and guards the underlying muscles, bones, ligaments and organ s....
at the base of body hair

Hair

Fear

Fear is an emotional response to threats and danger. It is a basic survival mechanism occurring in response to a specific stimulus, such as pain or the threat of pain....
or awe. The reflex

ReFLEX

ReFLEX is a wireless protocol developed by Motorola which is used for two-way paging.The Motorola PageWriter released in 1996 was one of the first devices to use the ReFLEX network protocol....
of producing goose bumps is known as horripilation, piloerection, or the pilomotor reflex.

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Encyclopedia

Goose bumps, also called goose flesh, goose pimples, chill bumps, or the medical term cutis anserina, are the bumps on a person's skin

Skin

Hair

Fear

Fear is an emotional response to threats and danger. It is a basic survival mechanism occurring in response to a specific stimulus, such as pain or the threat of pain....
or awe. The reflex

ReFLEX

Mammal

Mammals are a class of vertebrate animals whose name is derived from their distinctive feature, mammary glands, with which they feed their young....
s; a prominent example are porcupine

Porcupine

Porcupines are rodents with a coat of sharp Spine , or quills, that defend them from predators. They are endemic in both the Old World and the New World....
s which raise their quills when threatened.

Etymology

The "goose bumps" (also "goosebumps") effect gets its name from geese. Goose feathers grow from stores in the epidermis which resemble human follicles

Hair follicle

A hair follicle is part of the skin that grows hair by packing old Cell s together. Attached to the follicle is a sebaceous gland, a tiny sebum-producing gland found everywhere except on the hands, lips and soles of the feet....
. When a goose's feathers are plucked, its skin has protrusions where the feathers were, and it is these bumps which the human phenomenon

Phenomenon

A phenomenon is any observation occurrence. In popular usage, a phenomenon often refers to an extraordinary event. In physics, a phenomenon may be a feature of matter, energy, or spacetime....
resemble. It is not clear why in English the particular fowl goose was chosen, as most other birds have this same anatomical feature. The term "goose bumps" is misleading because the bumps on a goose's skin does not qualify as piloerection, though birds do have the same reflex of extending their feathers out, a function of keeping themselves warm.

The German

German language

German is a West Germanic languages, thus related to and classified alongside English language and Dutch language. It is one of the world's world language and the most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union....
word is a mimic of English, referring to is as Gänsehaut, i.e. "goose skin", as it is in Italian

Italian language

Italian is a Romance languages spoken by about 63 million people as a first language, primarily in Italy. In Switzerland, Italian is one of four Linguistic geography of Switzerlands....
(la pelle d'oca) . In other languages, however, the "goose" may be replaced by other kinds of poultry. For instance, "hen

Chicken

The chicken is a Domestication fowl. Recent evidence suggests that domestication of the chicken was under way in Vietnam over 10,000 years ago....
" is used in French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken around the world by around 80 million people as first language, by 190 million as second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired tongue, with significant speakers in 54 countries....
(la chair de poule) and Spanish

Spanish language

Spanish or Castilian is a Romance languages that originated in northern Spain, and gradually spread in the Kingdom of Castile and evolved into the principal language of government and trade....
(la piel de gallina), "Chicken

Chicken

The chicken is a Domestication fowl. Recent evidence suggests that domestication of the chicken was under way in Vietnam over 10,000 years ago....
" is used in Dutch

Dutch language

Dutch is a West Germanic languages spoken by over 22 million people as a first language, and about 5 million people as a second language."1% of the EU population claims to speak Dutch well enough in order to have a conversation." Outside the European Union the number of second language speakers of Dutch is very small. Most native...
(kippenvel), Chinese

Chinese language

Chinese or the Sinitic language is a language family consisting of language mutually unintelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the two branches of Sino-Tibetan languages of languages....
and Afrikaans (hoendervleis). The equivalent Japanese

Japanese language

IPA: [n?iho?go] is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is related to the Ryukyuan languages....
term, ??, torihada, translates literally as "bird skin".

The same effect is manifested in the root word "horror" in English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England and has lingua franca status in many parts of the world as a result of the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries and that of the United States from the mid 20th century onwa...
, which is derived from Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Military history of the Roman Empire, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe....
horrere, which means "to bristle", and "be horrified", because of the accompanying hair reaction.

Anatomy/biology

Goose bumps are created when tiny muscle

MUSCLE

MUSCLE is public domain, multiple sequence alignment software for protein and nucleotide sequences.MUSCLE is integrated into UGENE bioinformatics tool as a plugin....
s at the base of each hair

Hair

Hair is a protein filament that epidermal growth from hair follicle deep within the dermis. The fine, soft hair found on many nonhuman mammals is typically called fur; wool is the characteristically curly hair found on sheep and goats....
, known as arrectores pilorum
Arrectores pilorum

Arrectores pilorum are tiny muscle fibers attached to each hair follicle, which contract to make the hairs stand on end, causing goose bumps....
, contract and pull the hair erect. The reflex is started by the sympathetic nervous system

Sympathetic nervous system

The Sympathetic Nervous System is a branch of the autonomic nervous system along with the enteric nervous system and parasympathetic nervous system....
, which is in general responsible for many fight-or-flight response

Fight-or-flight response

'The 'fight-or-flight response', also called the fright, fight or flight response', 'hyperarousal' or the 'acute stress response', was first described by Walter Cannon in 1915....
s.

As a response to cold: in animals covered with fur

Fur

Fur is a Hair of any non-human mammal, also known as the pelage. It may consist of short ground hair, long guard hair, and, in some cases, medium awn hair....
or hair, the erect hairs trap air to create a layer of insulation

Thermal insulation

The term thermal insulation can refer to materials used to reduce the rate of heat transfer, or the methods and processes used to reduce heat transfer....
. Goose bumps can also be a response to anger or fear: the erect hairs make the animal appear larger, in order to intimidate enemies. This can be observed in the intimidation displays of chimpanzee

Chimpanzee

Chimpanzee, sometimes colloquially known as a chimp, is the common name for the two Extant taxon species of ape in the genus Pan where the Congo River forms the boundary between the native habitat of the two species:...
s, in stressed mice

House mouse

The House Mouse is one of the most numerous species of the genus Mus commonly termed a mouse. It is a small mammal and a rodent. In most parts of the world, they live in close proximity to humans....
and rats, and in frightened cat

Cat

The cat , also known as the Domestication cat or house cat to distinguish it from other Felinae and Felidae, is a small predationy carnivore species of crepuscular mammal that is valued by humans for its companionship and its ability to hunt vermin, snakes, scorpions, and other unwanted household pests....
s. In humans, it can even extend to piloerection as a reaction to hearing nails scratch on a chalkboard, listening to awe-inspiring music; feeling or remembering strong, positive emotions (e.g., after winning a sports event); or to an intellectual or spiritual epiphany

Epiphany

Epiphany may refer to:* Epiphany , a Christian holiday on January 6 celebrating the visit of the Magi to the infant Jesus* Epiphany , the sudden realization or comprehension of the essence or meaning of something...
.

Piloerection as a response to cold or emotion is vestigial

Vestigial structure

Vestigiality describes homology character of organisms which have seemingly lost all or most of their original function in a species through evolution....
in humans; as humans retain only very little body hair, the reflex (in humans) now provides no known benefit.

In humans, goose bumps are strongest on the forearms, but also occur on the legs, neck, and other areas of the skin that have hair. In some people, they even occur in the face or on the head. In humans, the areolas of the breasts of females typically show piloerection because of hormonal distribution, for example, when aroused or inside the maternity cycle.

Piloerection is also a (rare) symptom

Symptom

A symptom is a departure from normal function or feeling which is noticed by a patient, indicating the presence of disease or abnormality. A symptom is subjective, observed by the patient, and not measured....
of some diseases, such as temporal lobe epilepsy

Epilepsy

Epilepsy is a common chronic neurological disorder characterized by recurrent unprovoked seizure s. These seizures are transient signs and/or symptoms of abnormal, excessive or synchronous neuronal activity in the brain....
, some brain tumor

Brain tumor

A brain tumor is an abnormal growth of cells within the brain or inside the skull, which can be cancerous or non-cancerous .It is defined as any cranium tumor created by abnormal and uncontrolled Mitosis, normally either in the brain itself , in the cranial nerves , in the brain envelopes , skull, pituitary and pineal gland, or spread from...
s, and autonomic hyperreflexia. Goose bumps can also be caused by withdrawal from opiate

Opiate

In medicine, the term opiate describes any of the narcotic alkaloids found in opium, as well as any derivatives of such alkaloids....
s such as heroin

Heroin

Heroin is a opioid synthesized from morphine, a derivative of the opium poppy. It is the 3,6-acetate ester of morphine . The white crystalline form is commonly the hydrochloride salt diacetylmorphine hydrochloride, however heroin Freebase may also appear as a white powder....
. A skin condition that mimics goose bumps in appearance is keratosis pilaris

Keratosis pilaris

Keratosis pilaris is a very common genetics Hair follicle condition that is manifested by the appearance of rough bumps on the skin, hence referred to as chicken skin....
.