Visited a craft shop in Southampton today, for purposes unrelated to the project, but found pieces of foam, felt and other materials that got me thinking about the laminated structure of the cuticle. Pieces of corrugated card reminded me of the striations. Some interesting models could be made using these materials. I purchased a few things, putting back brown coloured materials since hair colour comes from within the cortex not the cuticle, for the purpose of making some very basic models to explain some ideas to the artists. I thought the yellow foam could symbolise the high cysteine (sulphur containing amino acid) content of the tough, cross-linked A-layer. Coloured tissue paper could represent the thinner lipid layers. ~James
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