| In the early 20th century, Saint-Raphaël was still a little fishing village, but it is now a fashionable resort town where eager sun-worshipers crowd every corner of the beach. But the price of a glowing tan can be a heavy one: skin cancer is on the rise in most areas of the world, and in France alone, the number of cases doubles every ten years. In countries at higher latitudes, the situation is made even more serious by the thinning of the ozone layer. In the spring, the quantity of ozone present in the higher atmosphere is reduced by between 30 and 50 percent and UVB rays become between three and twenty times stronger. Thus we find skin cancer is most common in Canada; in the south of Chile, seven minutes of exposure is enough to cause sunburn in the most dangerous seasons; and in Australia, the rising UVB rays pose even greater risks for a predominantly paleskinned population with a taste for outdoor sports. Today it is estimated that one in every two Australians will develop skin cancer at some point in their lives.
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