Why Do We Have Hair??
By Gabriel Baez Alarcon
Hair. Even though we might consider ourselves pretty hairless compared to other animals humans are actually covered in around five million hair follicles. We don’t think about it much but it’s always there. Us humans have many useless body parts including vomeronasal organ, the appendix, our wisdom teeth, and hair but are these parts completely useless like we think they are? What is it made of? Why exactly do we have it? What is hair?!
Hair is made of a tough protein called Keratin. What is Keratin? Keratin is a fibrous protein forming the main structural constituent of feathers, hoofs and claws. Most people think that hair is just dead cells but in fact, it is made up of living cells that divide and grow to build the hair shaft.
Hair. Even though we might consider ourselves pretty hairless compared to other animals humans are actually covered in around five million hair follicles. We don’t think about it much but it’s always there. Us humans have many useless body parts including vomeronasal organ, the appendix, our wisdom teeth, and hair but are these parts completely useless like we think they are? What is it made of? Why exactly do we have it? What is hair?!
Hair is made of a tough protein called Keratin. What is Keratin? Keratin is a fibrous protein forming the main structural constituent of feathers, hoofs and claws. Most people think that hair is just dead cells but in fact, it is made up of living cells that divide and grow to build the hair shaft.
How does hair grow some might ask? Something that you might not know which I found was pretty interesting is that males’ hair grow faster than females’ hair. But back to the topic, your hair starts growing at a root at the bottom of the follicle. This is connected to multiple blood vessels which feeds the root. This results in longer hair.
A question that I was asked while writing this article is how does hair get its color? Hair gets its color from something called melanin. The more melanin that you have in your hair the darker your hair is;for example if you have blond or white hair then you have a low amount of melanin but if you have black hair then you have lots of melanin. When you get older your hairs follicle will start to die which will result in less follicles less melanin which will result in very light colored hair.
Did you learn anything after reading this? If yes, then you can share what you've learned with your friends, family, etc. Now you will never look at your hair the same but will no everything about it.
https://www.aad.org/public/kids/hair/what-gives-hair-its-color
A question that I was asked while writing this article is how does hair get its color? Hair gets its color from something called melanin. The more melanin that you have in your hair the darker your hair is;for example if you have blond or white hair then you have a low amount of melanin but if you have black hair then you have lots of melanin. When you get older your hairs follicle will start to die which will result in less follicles less melanin which will result in very light colored hair.
Did you learn anything after reading this? If yes, then you can share what you've learned with your friends, family, etc. Now you will never look at your hair the same but will no everything about it.
https://www.aad.org/public/kids/hair/what-gives-hair-its-color
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