As Andrew said in our class: science is everywhere. It indeed is. Such as today when I saw one of the most famous hair style appeared once again in front my face, it then leads me thinking about the science about our humans hair.
(Photo from:https://dribbble.com/shots/2201057-Donald-Trump)
First, why do we have hairs? That is easy, because we are mammals. As many mammals do: “hair plays many important roles-warmth and protection from germs for example. Hair also helps reduce friction-and thereby irritation-in skinto-skin contact”, these are the reasons why we human and other mammals have hairs.
You may then curious about that some mammals does not have hair as human nor King Kong does, such as elephant. To meet the appetite I searched on the website and the article published on Scientific American explained this issue: elephant does have hair, a very thin hair. But as a common scene: thin hairs makes our body temperature lower than a bare skin. The reason why after 65 millions years revolution the thin hair still exist on elephant’s skin is it actually help elephant survival under hot temperatures. Since elephants lives under temperatures of up to 120 degrees Fahrenheit, the revolution learned to cool off by grow thin hairs at certain density. After reaching that point, “hair stops insulating and wicks heat off the body instead—helping the elephants get rid of an extra 20 percent of their body heat”, as Scientific American says.
Another thing related to hair I want to know about is wether hair loss is hereditary, my cousin worry about that quiet often since my uncle is already quiet bald. Regarding the fact that bald man could be even more attractive such as the gentlemen above, while he still hard to imagine after certain age he gonna suffer hair loss.
After reading couple journals I decide not to tell him the conclusion based on those journals since based on the experiments scientists did so far there is a strong relation between baldness and genes. “Those with hair loss commonly shared the same variations of two genes that together made them seven times more likely to suffer baldness“, researchers from King’s College (not the one in Wilkes Barre), London says to the public. The same relation also exist in women, but with less likely.
But it never means that it’s hopeless to keep his hair if he does not want to loss them. Now more and more scientists figured out how to successfully keep hair with the patient who potentially may loss hair as well as to regain hair for those who already suffer hair loss in their life.
Thanks, scientists.
.
References:
https://dribbble.com/shots/2201057-Donald-Trump
https://dribbble.com/shots/1698209-Little-bald-man
https://dribbble.com/shots/1612604-Granpa
Perry, B. (2000, Sep 18). You asked…why do we have body hair? Science World, 57, 22. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/docview/218144078?accountid=13158
https://dribbble.com/shots/1121424-Protein-Shakes
News, Bloomberg. (October 13, 2008 Monday ). Studies say genes may hold key to cure for baldness. Providence Journal, Retrieved from www.lexisnexis.com/hottopics/lnacademic
That was a compelling point you made about elephants and the thinness of their hair as a survivor mechanism all these years against hot and dire temperatures. I wonder if this is the same reason why other such animals have a lack of hair as well and I am assuming that other animals based on their environments through the ages have grown mass amounts of hair for warmth and protection in colder areas of the world. One thing I am unsure of is how come men have very thin hairs on their hands, yet longer hairs on their arms, and most women have very few? Since both genders are obviously human, you would think they would of gone through the same stages of hair growth in respect to the environmental conditions they faced.