Curisity killed the kitty II
I've found this place to be a far better source of useful information than wikipedia and encarta (remember that?!) put together.

So here's my new curiosity:

When you burn your skin and run it under cold water to take the heat away, why does it carry on heating up, even after all the original heat applied must surely have been cooled by the water? If you boil an egg and then submerge it in cold water it cools pretty quickly, how come skin seems to create its own exothermic reactions?

Any doctors care to step up?
( Kitty v1.0 desperately naive, Fri 31 Oct 2008, 17:06, 4 replies, latest was 16 years ago)

i'm not a doctor, but...
i think the big difference with the egg is that you're submerging it, therefore it has a chance to cool from all sides; the cooling is more complete. with your skin, however, you're just cooling the surface. it doesn't carry on heating up; it's just that the bit below the surface was never cooled down to begin with. heat radiates, so the below-surface stuff spreads back to the surface....
(tuqueboy has been in a medically -induced coma since, Fri 31 Oct 2008, 17:09, Reply)

It doesn't. It just feels that way.
When you run it under the water it cools it, but it's also cooling off the nerve endings there to reduce the sensation of pain. When you remove it from the water, the blood flow in that area increases a LOT as the body brings platelets and white blood cells and whatnot to bear as it tries to contain the damage. That's why it swells up. It feels hot to the touch because all that fresh blood from deep within your body is being routed to the surface in that one area to try to heal it.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Fri 31 Oct 2008, 17:20, Reply)

^what he said
your blood is being diverted (not all of it obviously) to the dmamged areas to start repairing it. That's why it can still feel warmer than the surrounding skin hours later
(bamboozled Can hear you getting fatter, Fri 31 Oct 2008, 18:32, Reply)

In fact
It's satan heating your arm up. Because you're evil. Possibly.
(GONEism, Mon 3 Nov 2008, 15:43, Reply)