AMae reports on why many of us have tomorrow off work or school.

For those of us who are Americans, tomorrow is the day that signifies to many the beginning of summer. We'll have the day off work and school. We'll get to go to barbecues, to the beach, to anywhere we feel free. This is because tomorrow we celebrate Memorial Day.

But how many of us know the true significance of Memorial Day? It is a national holiday for a reason, but, why? Memorial Day is the day that Americans honor those who have fallen serving our country. It is the day that we recognize the sacrifice that so many men and women have made so that we are free.

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The sun is out! On Friday I got soaked in the rain at BioBlitz, and on Saturday I got baked in the sun at the Illinois Institute of Technology's 2009 Graduation.

Between the hours of 9am and 2pm, I sat in a white folding chair listening to Pomp and Circumstance watching the next generation of engineers in their black gowns and hats get their diplomas. The sun made me feel warm and happy, but its ultraviolet (UV) light, invisible, was causing significant skin damage. Sunlight hits the earth in three forms: infrared (heat), visible, and UV light. UV light can be categorized based on their wavelengths in nanometers into UV-A (400 to 320 nm) which is not absorbed by the ozone layer and is the least harmful radiation, UV-B (320 to 290nm) which is absorbed partially by the ozone layer, and UV-C (100 to 290nm) which is completely absorbed by the ozone layer. UV-A causes tans, UV-B causes sunburns, and UV-C almost never reaches us. The UV-A and UV-B light from the sun killed some of my skin cells and damaged my DNA.

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