‘Humans are the only animals who have hair, rather than fur’.
So said one of my patients today. Sure, she was quoting from an article by Rebecca Mead in The New Yorker, who was herself quoting an anecdote in a book about the subject of hair in general, and, it turned out, also in very specific detail.
Barbara*, told me that**, amongst other things of vital interest to me at this stage of life, there’s no evidence that stress makes you go grey; the reason that Obama’s hair shows evidence of aging is that he got older during his presidency. Dentistry, Presidency-of-the-United-States-ency: both have the capacity to change ones hair it seems, and make you grow older at the same time.
92% of hair whorls clockwise; blonde hair is a relatively recent genetic mutation (if you call twenty thousand years ago ‘recent’), and 90 per cent of the world have black or dark-brown hair. Redheads (1-4%, although currently in Australian female prime ministers, close to 100%) may be particularly sensitive to pain. I must remember that next time I treat a redhead…
*her real name. Thanks Barbara!
**actually? she gave me the clipping; I teased out the detail.
