Ologies with Alie Ward - Trichology (HAIR) with Valerie Horsley

Episode Date: May 15, 2018

Peach fuzz. Chin hairs. Mammalian ponytails. WHY DO THEY HAPPEN. Yale researcher and associate professor Dr. Valerie Horsley stops by California to chat with Alie about the nature of hair and why it grows in the wrong places, the causes and remedies for hair loss, the grossest museum ever, and why we love and hate and need our hair as animals. Also: Dr. Horsely's decision to run for office and Alie's disgusting confessions, per usual.Dr. Valerie Horsely is on Facebook and TwitterThe Horsely Lab at YaleAction Together ConnecticutMore episode sources & linksBecome a patron of Ologies for as little as a buck a monthOlogiesMerch.com has hats, shirts, pins, totes!Follow @Ologies on Twitter and InstagramFollow @AlieWard on Twitter and InstagramSound editing by Steven Ray MorrisTheme song by Nick Thorburn

Hey, it's me, it's your hairdresser's daughter with the cool-ass perm, Ally Ward. I'm here with another episode of Allergies. Are you ready to hair trick-ology? Yes, you are. You wispy beast. Let's do it. Okay, first, a quick thank you to all the patrons at patreon.com for making this podcast possible.

I just posted the almost two and a half hour uncut, raw version of dendrology. No edits for you all as a bonus just to say thank you for chipping in every week and helping me pay an editor. You can also support Allergies by wearing some sweet-ass merch. So much stuff available at olergiesmerch.com. And thank you to everyone who's downloading. Thank you for telling your friends or your coworkers. Thanks for tweeting about it, gramming about the show.

Past couple months, the numbers have been getting crazy, you guys. Makes me so happy. I'm like, what? I want to cry, but I'm not going to because we have chin hairs and drain clogs to discuss. So thank you for subscribing to the podcast so you'll know as soon as episodes go up and rating and reviewing, as you know, I read all your reviews. I don't have any shame about it. Yeah, I read them.

I read the hell out of them. This week, I'm going to read one that is ... It's a hot button topic. Yeah, it needs to be addressed. Let's do it. Let's talk about it. Wayne W says, you need to understand how much I like this podcast. I'm one of those horrible people who feel very strongly about the pronunciation of GIF, GIF. Like I will come at you if you pronounce it like it's peanut butter, oops.

So when Allie said GIF during the Dendrology episode, my family all looked at me to see how I would react. OMG, she's going to lose it for sure. But I like allergy and allergies so, so much that I just shrugged. This is the highest praise of all time. So Wayne W, thank you so much for that. I pronounced it GIF because the creator of GIF wants it pronounced GIF. If someone told me to pronounce my name, Ailee, I'd be like, fuck off.

So if you want to call it a GIF, you can do that if you invented the GIF. I said a GIF for a long time and I'm just trying to honor the person who made it. Anyway, okay, trick or treat, trickology, the study of hair, here we are. So whether yours is thinning or not, thrick means hair in Greek, which morphed into trick, which means hair. So I'm going to give you a super quick overview to give you some context for this episode. So hair, it's made of three parts. There's an inner part called a medulla.

Then around it, there's a cortex, which contains keratin, that's protein, it makes it strong. And it also contains different kinds of melanin pigments that give it color. And then there's an outer cuticle, it looks like a series of overlapping scales, kind of like a pangolin, and it repels water. You got your vellus hair, that's your fine, barely visible peach fuzz unless you're standing in bright light in a barbecue and then you're like, could everyone see my face hair? And terminal hair, that's the big wiry guys. So boom, you know a lot about hair right now.

Okay, so in this episode of trickology, I sat down with a Yale researcher and professor who focuses on skin and hair regeneration. And then in all of her spare time from being a Yale professor, JK, I don't know how the hell she does this. She's also running for Connecticut State Senate in the 17th district. In my spare time, I look at pictures of dogs on the internet. So I met her through an internet pal and oligite, Aaron Herdman, who I got to meet in three dimensions when he and this oligist came to California.

Aaron sat in on the interview, so you may hear him chuckling a little bit here and there shifting in a seat. This oligist sports a blonde bob and a very down to earth, southern ease. And I was just thrilled to have them over to talk about mammalian hair trends and growing hair and losing hair and then regrowing hair and lightening it, lasering it, loving it, hating it, all the things in between. Also we cover hair museums and plumbing problems. You're never going to look at your own furry body quite the same, so please get ready to

run your fingers through this next episode, all about hair with Tricologist Valerie Horsley. So yeah, just hold it like an ice cream cone. You could, I'll check your levels. Valerie Horsley. Doctor. Doctor. Now, what is your title? What's your official title?

Associate Professor in Molecular Cellular and Developmental Biology and Dermatology. I saw that on the Yale website and I was like, she has so many words in her title. Can you explain a little bit about what you do? Yes. So I'm a professor at Yale, so I wear lots of hats. I run a lab, which is like running a small business and our product is the science we produce and discover and it's mostly in the regeneration of skin and hair. And then I teach undergraduates introductory cell biology, 260 of them right now.

260. Do you know all their names? Be honest. No. You don't? No. Do you expect you to? No.

Okay. This is a side note, quick side note. I was in class in college once and I tried not to, I would fall asleep sometimes and I'm not saying I would fall asleep in your class, this was a different subject. So I moved to the front row because I knew if I'd sat in the front row I wouldn't fall asleep and I fell asleep in the front row. Does that ever happen to professors? Do they ever see people sleeping in class and they're like, I'm going to shoot you with

a water gun? Falling asleep is not as bad as being on Facebook in the class. If someone's falling asleep I'm like, they're just tired or whatever. But being on Facebook, it's a special thing that I just, I'm like, I can't deal. Do you lay down any ground rules in the beginning of the semester? I do. I already do. Yeah.

Do not get on Facebook in my class. I find it very disrespectful. Hey, kid of Yale, Farmville and your aunt's parenting memes about wine o'clock, who else can wait? Do you ever walk behind them and see like? I walk around. So it's a huge lecture hall with two aisles and so I like kind of walk up and down. Professor Horsley is like, do not poke anyone in my class.

Yeah. Not while I have teaching. So how long have you been a professor? For nine years. And now you work in the Horsley lab. Correct. Do you have grandparents who are also scientists or are you a baller enough or they named a lab after you?

That's what happens when you have your own lab is it's called your last name and your lab. Yeah. So yes. No, no one else in my family is a scientist. So the Valerie Horsley lab. Correct. That's amazing.

I did not know that naming your own lab was part of like present day science badassery. I thought in order to have a Yale lab named after you, you had to literally not be alive or you had to be born into a dynasty of people with lab coats and monocles. No, you just have to work hard and like what you do. So I googled lab getting named after you just, I don't know, just took a stab and the search return was like a thousand websites about breeding laboratory retriever puppies. So different lab. You can still name it for yourself though.

What was it like when you, the day that you had your lab, when you're like, oh, should I have a lab? Yeah. So the first two weeks, I was like, oh yeah, I'm a Yale professor. This is so awesome, right? And then I freaked out. I was like, oh my God, I'm from Alabama. They're going to tell me they made a mistake.

Yeah. No, I feel like imposter syndrome is really prevalent among like the brainiest people which is so painful because I think a lot of very bombastic idiots don't seem to feel like imposters. Correct. I don't know why that is. Was it a culture shock at all for you to go from Alabama to New York to to Yale? Yes.

I mean, I'm the only person in my family that's ever left the South. Really? Since like the 1700s. What? Yeah. So do they call you a Yankee? My family. When I said, when I told my family and my grandmother's living room that I was going to take the

job at Yale, my aunt sat in the corner and shook her head. Are you serious? But now you work with trichology. Correct. And when I found this out, I lost my mind. I like freaked out. And why hair and skin? Yes.

So I'm very interested in how the tissues in our bodies maintain themselves. So most of our lives were pretty, okay, we're not sick. And how does that work? Because our cells and our skin and our hair are constantly regenerating. Now, okay, to spell a myth, like every seven years, are you a completely new person? Like do you regenerate enough where you're like, I'm the same person, but I'm all different cells? So it depends on the tissue.

So your skin, it's thought that your skin turns over every two to four weeks. Totally new skin every month. You're intestine every three days. What? Mm-hmm. That's so many makeovers happening. Totally. Wow.

But we're the same person, but we're different people. Does that ever trip you out emotionally? Like if you've ever have a beef with someone, are you like, well, technically they are a different person? No. Okay. I think I would use that to excuse like an ex-boyfriend coming back. I was like, well, brains don't really regenerate at the same level as your epithelial tissues,

which are the coverings and linings of your body, like your skin. Yeah, but we love people's, we love their guts. We hate their guts. Yes. You're right. So every three days. Every three days. Okay.

So tell me a little bit about skin and hair. Why is it such a different beast than the rest of your bow day? Like what is it doing? Why is it such a hustler? So your skin is your presentation of yourself to the world, but it's also the first way you're protecting yourself from your environment. So it's there to protect you from any pathogens in our environment. It's also there to hold in the water in our bodies and keep everything inside.

And so it's going to get insulted by damage, so it has to regenerate. Is that a scientific term, insulted? Sure. That'd be so great if you're like an insult to the dermis. No, yes, totally. I know I've written that sometime. Really? I'm sure.

It's more than just a glove slap. It's like sun damage and stuff. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Okay. So when did you get, when did you get so interested in science? You mentioned that there are no Dr. Horsley's to establish your lab before you. So how did you know you were so into science?

When I was 12, I took a life science class with Mr. DeYoung in Atlanta and I fell in love. Really? Mm-hmm. With science. With biology. Not Mr. DeYoung. No.

Just checking. I don't want him to get his hopes up. PS, I really wanted a visual of Mr. DeYoung. I had to know. I wanted to maybe kindly locate him and say, hey, so I creepily researched Atlanta Middle School science faculty for like a serious hour on a Saturday night. Y'all, I got nowhere. I looked so hard.

So I have no visual for you for Mr. DeYoung. So I'm just going to picture him as like a benign gentleman in a short-sleeved dress shirt, maybe in a striped tie with just the tiniest crust of mustard speckle from lunch and a pushbroom mustache, the color and density of an otter's pelt. Wait, I think I just fell in love with Mr. DeYoung. So now, what was it about science that you loved so much? So I love like thinking about how our bodies work, like how are we able to talk right now into these microphones or walk around?

Just like the discovery and the knowledge, like you're always learning something new. So it's kind of the curiosity of it. And why skin and hair? How did your work gravitate that way? Like what was your path to where you found yourself in a field studying the insults to our dermis? So I did my graduate thesis on muscle tissue. So how do we grow our muscle when we exercise, that kind of question?

So Dr. Valerie Horsley got a bachelor's in biology and her PhD in biochem and cell bio. But then she was kind of over muscle tissue. Well, I don't know if she was over it, she didn't say that. But she wanted to be trained in a different type of tissue. So she headed the Big Apple to study skin. And she did her postdoc at Rockefeller University under Dr. Elaine Fuchs, who is like a big deal when it comes to skin and hair science, which is like a whole scene. And how are skin and hair kind of lumped together?

So it's very important that we understand all the cell types that go into making the skin. And that's sort of been a major area of research in the last probably 15 years, is trying to understand what are all the different cell types that make up the skin. And that's one of the focal points of my lab is trying to understand in the dermis in particular what are the cells that go into making the skin. Okay. Yeah.

So, yeah. And still the largest organ or I know that there's been research saying that there's an intermesh under our skin that is now the largest organ. Have you heard of that? Some spongy fluid filled intermesh that they're like, this is a new organ, this is the biggest organ. No. Skin is the biggest organ.

Correct. So in March of 2018, which is like five seconds ago in historical medical history terms, researchers at NYU may have discovered the largest organ in the body, thus knocking our leathery blood bag right off its pedestal. So this very heavy air quotes, new largest organ is called the interstitium. And it is a spongy network of connective tissue. It's made of elastin and collagen and it holds a bunch of your body juice. So like fluids, lymph, other things I don't want to touch.

Now this newest biggest human organ made for some pretty splashy headlines, but not all doctors are on board. Not all of them are like, yes, it's the new biggest organ. So for now, let's just say skin remains the biggest organ, which is still weird. Why is it an organ if it's a big, like it's essentially fondant? How is fondant a cake layer? Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah.

Well, but it's smarter than that. So I like to, in my classes, I say like the coverings of cells are not like saran wrap. It's not like that we just have saran wrap. We have like smart saran wrap, right? So it actually has to respond to our environment. Like if you get sun, you get a tan and that goes to protect you from the UV rays that you might have later. So you know, it has a function.

So all of our tissues have function and the skin is a protective barrier to our environment. So what the hell is hair doing? Let's get to hair. Yeah. So hair is also a protective, we call it an appendage. No. Yes. Really?

Yep. So you have millions of appendages growing out of your, all of your body. That's disgusting. I mean, I love it, but it's disgusting. Yeah. Those from the same cells that make up our epidermis, the outer part of the skin, during development, and some of those cells are told to be hair follicles. And so that's why we have hair in certain places.

They're supposed to be in the certain location they grow in. Supposed to be with air quotes. Yes. I'm Italian. So, you know, sometimes you're like, what are you doing there? Yes. How did you get there? And so what is the evolutionary function of hair?

Why do we have these long flowing tresses on our scalp, but other hairs give up at a certain length? And they're like, I'm out of here, I grew enough on your thigh, I'm jumping ship. So I think the function of hair is warmth. And I believe also that there's some sort of like social selection probably for why we have hair in certain regions. Oh. Like it's not clear to me why we have hair only on our heads that's long and whereas

monkeys are our next closest ancestor have it pretty much all over the whole body. Oh my God. Can you imagine if monkeys had ponytails? Yes. Can you imagine if you saw a monkey with like one of those ponytails that like a dude who works on motorcycles would have? I'm having a moment. Hold up.

I looked into this and as Valerie will expound upon the length of time in the antigen or growth stage determines how long a hair can get. And the reason why humans may have longer growth phases on head hair could be because we evolved with less body hair. So we needed the head hair for warmth and cooling and protection from the sun or, or, or it could have evolved because styling is a form of looking good to a potential mate. Some evolutionary biologists think that not all of them though. Alfred Wallace, who is one of Darwin's contemporaries we mentioned in the evolutionary biology

episode, he thought that long hair was scientifically whack and he did not think we should have it. He thought the fact that apes don't have long hair, but we do clearly, clearly must prove the existence of God. Okay. Yes. We have a hairless ape. Did I already do, did I do opposable thumbs?

I did. Okay. What about a weird butt? Did he give anything? The baboons. Right. Right. You know what?

Let's give this one a ponytail. Yeah. Yeah. That's hot. Let's do that. That's excellent. Monkeys have all over similar types of follicles. Correct.

Is it a different type of follicle that makes our head hair grow long? So we do have different hair follicles. So the thicker hair is different than the thin hair that we have on our forehead. But the reason it grows so long is something called the hair cycle. Okay. So a growth cycle that all of your hair follicles go through and when it's growing, it can stay there for years, such as when you're on your head or for a short time, like the small hairs that you have on your forehead.

So a growth cycle. So what's the typical growth cycle for a body hair? So we don't actually know that much about how the hair cycle is in humans. We know that the hairs on your head can grow for years and years and years. And then eventually the growth portion will die and regress. And then it'll just sit there and rest. Really? So your hair is growing, growing, growing.

And then at one point it's like, all done. And it just sits there. All done. Yep. Doesn't grow. Yep. And then there are stem cells that are at the base of the hair follicle that say, okay, it's time to grow a new hair follicle.

So it'll grow a new hair follicle. And then the old one gets ejected, blink, blink. And then can you explain to me, I'm so sorry, I don't know why there's a parade of MAC trucks on my street right now. I'm going to close this window, so I'm not literally, I'm like, is it garbage day? I mean, my heart is always loud, but that is next level, you guys, come on. Note I paused the recording here to close the windows. And also as long as I was up to get a LeCroix for Aaron.

And also this is not sponsored, but I wish, because I'll even fuck with the coconut. I drink them all. Frosty LeCroix. I am a little bit embarrassed that I just don't know this. What is a stem cell? I should know what this is and I don't. So stem cells are cells that are long lived. And they have the ability to regenerate themselves as well as form a differentiate into a tissue

specific cell. So we have stem cells in all of our tissues. And we start from a stem cell, the embryonic stem cell that can build every cell type in the body. But in adults, all of our tissues have stem cells that allow us to regenerate our tissues. So a stem cell is saying, okay, I'm here, I'm going to turn into a new hair follicle and it starts morphing into a hair follicle. Correct.

So do you do research on stem cells as well and like their potential for therapeutic use? Yes. Oh, how is that going? Like in general for life for all of us. So it's going well, I would say. I believe it's, it's definitely going to be therapeutic in the future. When I was a kid, I remember, do you remember the Guinness Book of World Records and there would be people like the longest nails and hair and stuff.

I remember being like seven and being like, when I grow up, I'm going to have the longest armpit hair in the world. I'm never going to cut it. And then was very dismayed to learn that armpit hair is like, doesn't grow that long. Sorry, dog. Yeah, I'm out. It only has a short growth cycle, you know, growth stage and then it stops growing. And so the hair on her head, some of it is, we don't know, has stopped growing and is

about to go boink. Correct. Now, is it different for different people? Why do some people have really thick hair? I have, I have llama hair, which is presently unwashed and I'm sorry, I wanted to wash it before you guys got here and I just didn't. I just didn't. I can't tell.

It's a mess. Why do some people have thick hair? Some people have thinner hair. What's happening? So you can have a different number of hair follicles. Oh, okay. You can have different sized follicles. So I think blondes tend to have thinner hair than brunettes that can have thicker hair

follicles. And it's probably also the structure of the hair follicle that kind of gives you body, what we call body. Okay. So I did a little follow up on this and blondes, your strands are thinner, at least they tend to be. I don't know if you have more fun, but you do have more strands like around 150,000 hairs while brunettes have around 100,000 because part of hair's function is to make sure your

scalp doesn't turn into sun bacon. So if you have less bulky hairs with less protective melanin, you're going to have more of them. Now, if you have glossy, rich, dark hair, you're going to need fewer of them. So no matter, your hair is like a big, dead pile of tiny ropes telling the sun to fuck off and find a different head to scorch. Now those curls, if your hair follicles are asymmetrical and oval shaped, one side of the hair shaft might have thicker keratin and kind of like a gift wrap ribbon that curls

when you shave down one side with scissors, boy, you got springy coils. Now straight hair is the result of a symmetrical round follicle. That's whether you're a muskrat or a sheep or your cousin or whatever. So we use mice for our research and there were some strains of mice that had wavy hair. And so we kind of know a few molecules that can induce curly hair because of those genetic studies. Do you stare at people's hair? No.

You don't? No. Someone told me that we humans shed more in the spring. Is that true? I don't think so. Okay. I feel like I always get a drain clog in the spring and I'm like, what the hell's going on?

It could be. I look this up and apparently a lot of people report more hair loss in the spring. On the upper end of 100 hairs a day is totally normal. Now seasonal transitions trigger a different cocktail of hormones your brain has to contend with alongside all the pressures of cleaning out your closet and doing your taxes and booking travel for all your friends' weddings. Oh, springtime. So many hormones.

And then hormones affect the rate of your hair growth as well, right? Correct. What are they doing? So we actually studied this in my lab. Really? Yeah. Okay. So especially during pregnancy people think about this because when you get pregnant

your hair is like radiant because it's growing from all the estrogen, that's what people think. Really? Makes really, yeah. That's really great hair. And then as soon as you have your baby a lot of women like lose a lot of hair all at the same time. And part of that is the hormone that goes to making milk for lactation can induce your

hair to stop growing. Oh. And so it's not that really like you're losing your hair, it's just all of the hair follicles are resetting at the same time, right? And so they're all ejecting at the same time instead of cycling randomly, which is more like you lose a hair here and there. Right. And for you yourself, do you think about your work when you, because you have lovely blonde

hair. Yeah, thank you. Do you think about your hair when you're getting it cut or done? Yes. Do you think about it like structurally? Because my hair is a, if my hair could write a book, it would be on over, it'd be a sad book about like abuse and stuff because I, like my hair is curly and gray and brown and I'd straighten it and dye it red.

Yeah. What am I doing to it? It's okay. You sure? Yeah. Because really your hair shaft, that's the part that you see outside the hair follicle is mostly protein and it's, we call it dead. Okay.

Because it's not really living cells that are reproducing themselves. Okay. It's just a fiber that's made into like this rope-like structure that firms a hair follicle. It's a dead appendage. You have over five million dead appendages growing out of your body. Can you handle that? We are such weird, goofy monsters. It's just beautiful.

And so it's a lie, is it almost like it's alive until it sprouts out of your skin at which point it's dead because it's got to be alive somewhere in the bulb, right? Correct. So there's this very crazy, robust structure that makes the hair shaft that we see outside. It's seven different cell lineages form the hair follicle. What? Okay. Explain this.

Yeah. So at the base of the hair follicle, there are cells that are highly proliferative and they're dividing and making new ones and those go up into seven different lineages and they sort of make these concentric circles. So three of them go into making the hair shaft that you see outside and then three of them go to make this channel that guides the hair out of the skin surface. And then there's a couple more that sort of allow the regeneration in the stem cells to be maintained.

So it's a real teamwork effort. Very much so. What's happening when we're lasering it? So that is killing the stem cells so that it won't grow back. And so when you laser it, you're killing the thing that says, let's make more hair. Correct. And so now I understand that laser works better for light skin, dark hair, that contrast. What's happening?

So the pigment that you see in hair follicles is from melanin, this molecule that's inserted into the hair follicle cells by these cells called melanocytes. So having more melanin in darker hair absorbs more of the laser into that hair follicle and then the heat helps destroy the basal stem cells in the follicle. So the contrast of light skin and dark hair helps the laser hit the targeted follicles. It's like, where am I going? Oh, there's one. Boom.

There's one. There's damage to the surrounding skin, which is why having more skin pigment or less hair pigment makes laser less effective. Laser doesn't know where it's going. Side note, this whole process was pioneered in the 1990s by an MIT dermatologist named R. Rocks Anderson, who was seemed very cool. He also came up with some laser therapies for acne and for tattoo regret. Y'all, this is weird.

I just researched him a little. No joke. He looks exactly, exactly like the imaginary Mr. DeYoung I was dreaming up earlier to a degree where I'm kind of freaking out. I'm having like yet another existential crisis about life being a simulation. Okay, carry on. Do you think in the future we'll figure out ways to just tell the stem cells to like almost like ordering a cappuccino on one of those machines?

Like I want, I'd like ginger smooth hair with a little beach wave. I believe so. I mean, that's sort of what we're all, there's a bunch of us studying this and like we want to understand how are the stem cells activated? Can we think of ways that we could just apply a cream and say, we don't want to grow here or please grow more? Yeah. Do you think that in the future we'll look back at like male pattern baldness and be like,

how did we not figure that out sooner? Like it'll be like a problem, it'll be like a polio or something, we'll be like, remember when that was a thing? Yes. Really? What's happening with that by the way? Yeah, so only a few years ago did we discover that the stem cells are still there when a man is bald or a woman goes bald.

The stem cells are just hanging out, but for some reason they can't get activated to regrow. And it's an autoimmune disorder where the immune system attacks the hair follicle and basically destroys it. Hey, immune system, just because you protect us from a bunch of gross shit on handrails and subways doesn't mean you can be addicted to hair follicles, all right? Get it together. And so it stops growing and then the stem cells can't get activated to form a new hair. And so if we can understand how to activate the stem cells again, we should be able to

grow hair back. There's actually a new therapy for alopecia, which is baldness. It was for immunosuppressants, so suppressing the immune system, these drugs, and these men started growing big heads of hair. Just pompadours, like Elvis style? Yeah, it's amazing. They're like, hook me up, doc. The results are crazy.

Yeah. Really? But you know, I didn't realize that it was autoimmune in nature, because there are certain autoimmune protocols that some patients would have to adopt if they have rheumatoid arthritis or if they have other autoimmune diseases. I wonder if that's ever been tried on. Yeah, so these drugs, they work. It's amazing.

The results are really crazy. Yeah. I feel like we'll look back and we'll go, oh man. Yeah, I remember when all those bald men existed. Yeah, like scurvy and we're like, oh, you just need more vitamin C. Yeah. Fascinating. So one study that was done on hair regrowth involved something called cyclosporine, which

is a heavy duty immunosuppressant drug that's used in like organ transplant recipients. It's a little much, just to use that to have like a flowing mane. But in the last few weeks, it's come out that researchers isolated a protein inhibitor that could be just as effective. It has a super sexy, super catchy name, whey-316606. But they're not ready to start selling it at Walgreens. So put your money away. And if you're like, I must do more very scientific research on baldness.

I found an article on the National Institutes for Health titled, Drug Discovery for Alopecia. Gone Today, Hair Tomorrow. No props to whoever pushed to get that published because you did it. Also another study showed that men with shaved heads are perceived as more manly and powerful than those without. So there's an option. I want to tell you that nine out of 10 articles about male baldness use stock photos of Duane the Rock Johnson.

That's just science. Okay. Now, what if you have the opposite intentions toward your millions of dead appendages? What is your feeling, your attitude toward like waxing and lasering? Are you like, do you look at it from a scientific point of view and you're like, this is going to hurt and I'm not going to do it? Or this is going to hurt my poor stem cells? How are you feeling about it?

I don't really wax, but I'm not like, I'm not Italian. So, you know, if I had, you know, if it was like on my chin, I probably would, right? Or my, you know, if I had a mustache, but, you know, I, I just feel like you have fair skin, fair hair, not maybe an issue. Why do some people get an errant chin hair? So I believe that what happens, and this happens to me too, like on my legs, I'm like, wait a minute, you weren't dark like five years ago, right? I think the hair follicles actually change.

They can change. And we actually just discovered a new thing that there's basically new cells are added to the follicle and it makes it bigger. And so it makes a thicker follicle. New cells are added to the follicle and they're like, make a bigger one. Let's bump this operation up. And I love that you're like, oh, it's later in life. All of my organs are rotting.

I'm marching toward death, but we're putting our resources into more thigh hair. Like, are you kidding me? Who's in charge of this? Why does this happen? So mad. Yeah. Let's talk about plucking because we haven't talked about that. God, yes.

Okay. So when you pluck a hair, yeah, it actually induces the stem cells to grow. It's like a wound response. Oh my God. And so it's actually regenerating the hair cycle. It's starting the growth stage again. Uh huh. And so it takes a while.

It takes like a couple of weeks because it has to grow down into the dermis and then make a new hair shaft and grow it out. And that's why it seems like it's better than shaving. But it's actually inducing the growth again. So does it grow in any stronger the second time? So it's actually damages the hair. You know, it's a wound that you're inducing and it can like remove some of the stem cells. So it can like thin your hair if you pluck a lot, like the same follicle over and over

and over. Because I have heard those warnings, like don't over pluck your brows because then when bushy brows are back, you're going to be so sad. Yeah, I don't know. I think when you're 90, you don't need bushy brows. You have other things to worry about. I think so. Like why from the waist down, you're a centaur covering hair and you're bald everywhere else.

Hey, drinks a bitch. And you can actually tell by the size of the bulb if it's in the growth stage or not. Really? Yeah. Big bulb means growth stage. Yep. Oh, that's gross and amazing. Yeah.

Those are all the cells that are making the new hair shaft. Oh, my God. You interrupted them in the middle of their work day. Yes, you did. They're like, where are we going? How many people are out there studying skin and hair growth? A lot. Are there?

Do you find it's easier to get people on board and to get funding and to have your lab continue because it's something that people care about? People care about their skin and hair more than, say, their pancreas? No, because the major funding we get is from the National Institutes of Health. It's a federal grant agency at the government. And most of the resources go to cancer or things that are... There are skin diseases that cause death, but hair is not... So usually we have to frame our grants in terms of wound, healing, and hair or something

that's going to cause death. That's a good point. But it's interesting, it seems like the work that you do is figuring out more about cell biology regeneration through the hair because it is so rapidly changing, right? So it's like a model of regeneration. Right, which is why that's your focus, right? Do you have a holy grail, like a white whale in terms of wanting to do in your field? Is there a problem that you're like, this is the problem I want to solve before I retire?

No, because I think that you have to follow science and go where science leads you. So every time I've ever said, I want to solve this problem and then I start to study it, that's never the paper I write. Really? Yeah, never. So yeah, just because you start to discover something and then you do the experiments and it's telling you something different. So you have to write the paper about what you discover and write the story about.

So yeah, you just remake it up. Is that been a life lesson for you, like that you're not always going to take you where you want to go? Yes. Right. And now, for example, you're running for Senate. Correct. You probably did not expect me doing that.

No. That's a good dovetail into that. So wait, how long have you been campaigning? I started my campaign at the end of December. So a few months. A few months, yeah. What was the moment where you're like, I'm a political candidate, let's do this? It's sort of been a progression, but the election of 2016 pretty much sparked it.

Yeah. Yeah. And so did you ever have any designs of running for office earlier in life or? No. Valerie says that the day after the 2016 election, she started becoming more involved at a local level and she helped found a grassroots organization called Action Together Connecticut, which promotes calls to action about legislation. And she started to think, huh, the leadership isn't that strong and that it would be a nice

thing to have someone in the Connecticut Senate who just shared her goals. So I was kind of like, well, who's going to run for the seat? Who's going to run for it? I was hoping that I could use my organization to support that person. And there was no one coming. And I was like, why don't I do this? And so I was sort of thinking about it and then I decided to do it. How does your family in the South feel about it?

They told me they were going to pray for me. They're Republicans. Okay. So, you know, they might not like that it says Democrat for State Senate on my thing, but it's okay. They love me. She's keen to tackle the budget and also just some nagging everyday gender equality shit. What I'm really motivated to do this for is for my daughters and so that they can have

paid family leave. They can get paid the same as a man in their job, you know, these kind of like social issues that I think I am surprised haven't already been one for us. What's been the most surprising thing about running for Senate? There's a lot of personal growth. Yeah. You know, so I speak a lot in public and I talk about my science, right? And that's very, here's our data.

I can talk about how excited I am about science or skin or whatever. But I have to like really dig in the campaign. I have to dig and talk about me and my mom and my grandmother. And so it's very vulnerable. Like I'm very vulnerable to random people. Yeah. And that's hard. You have to be very brave.

Yeah. I bet it's funny in terms of thick skin. Yes. Why, I wonder where that term really comes from, thick skin. Yeah. Is it better to have thick skin or? Yeah. It's interesting.

The first use of this term is cited in 1602. So people have been saying it for a minute. I remember once I saw a dermatologist and I was lying on the table and she was like, you have pretty thin skin. And I felt like it was a two for one therapy appointment. I was like, I know, right? So Valerie said she's a big fan of the research professor and author, Brené Brown, who's written a ton about shame and the power of vulnerability.

And Brown says, instead of aiming to have a thick skin and be impervious and shielded, that you should go for a soft front, strong back approach to life, kind to the world, but take no shit. So Brown also added wild heart in there somewhere, which is kind of nice if you need an excuse to go on like an impromptu road trip to a ghost town or break dance at a bat mitzvah. Rapid fire round. You ready? Okay, I'm ready.

So many questions. So many questions. It's really, we'll just go through them as fast as we can. But before we take questions from you, our beloved listeners, we're going to take a quick break for sponsors of the show. Sponsors? Why sponsors? You know what they do?

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So thanks for listening and thanks sponsors. Okay. So many questions. Zoe Teplik wants to know, I need to know, I swear I lose so much hair in the shower and through brushing and styling, but somehow I'm not bald yet. In fact, my hair is still thick. How is this? That's the hair cycle, the regenerative cycle.

So when you're losing hair, it's just the normal process of growing a new hair follicle. So it's like, don't trip, it's already dead. Yes. And it was always, it was chilling, taking a nap anyway. Correct. Before it popped out of there. Right. Okay.

Yeah. So it's like a new hair follicle is like per square millimeter or something, right? Correct. Okay. Good to know. So you're fine Zoe. Greg wants to know, are there any alternative natural treatments for dandruff for those of us that do have it and are more prone to the yeasts and bacteria that might affect

the scalp? How often do you recommend cleaning your hair? What's the best way to do it? So those are good questions. Okay. Um, we don't know what causes dandruff. Okay. So I don't know of any natural treatments for dandruff.

I think you need to wash your hair when you feel like you need to wash your hair. Okay. You know, when it feels dirty or whatever, like I have to wash my hair every other day. Yeah. Or I use a lot of dry shampoo. Oh, dry shampoo. I love that stuff. Now that's just absorbing the oils.

Correct. Okay. Yeah. So it depends on how much oil you have mostly. Side note. So despite 50% of the population having dandruff, you are not alone, you are fine, you are loved. Others still don't totally get dandruff. Most of the prevailing wisdom has been that it's been caused by a certain fungus, this

thing called melisesia yeast that secretes acid that inflames your scalp and then causes this high skin cell turnover. But a few years ago in 2016, more research came out that the levels of fungus were on par for dandruff sufferers and non-sufferers. But the level of staphococcus was higher and out of balance with another type of bacteria and that antifungal shampoos just happened to kill that staff overgrowth as well. So microbiome imbalance strikes again. Greg, I am 1 million percent not a doctor, but maybe look into probiotic foods.

I have also read anecdotal stories, see blogs, that allergies and autoimmune reactions like undiagnosed gluten sensitivity can affect inflammation on the scalp. But maybe that's a gut-biome imbalance affecting skin. Did I mention not a doctor? Maybe all of our bacteria is just off and it's just ruining all of our lives. I'm going to go live in the woods like a raccoon. How come we have to wash our hair but in the wild animals don't? Well, we don't have to wash our hair.

I haven't in a while. TBH? But it probably has to do with how much oil, so there is another appendage of the skin called the sebaceous gland that pumps oil onto our skin surface. Gross. It's awesome. Yeah. It's very protective.

It kicks the bacteria, kills bacteria. Oh, so the oil kills bacteria, like smothers it? Mm-hmm. Got it. And it moisturizes the skin. But we also have yeast growing on us. And that sometimes causes problems. Yes.

Emily Mankus wants to know, why is my hair curly? Why does it do that? How does it do that? How does mine twirl all over the place naturally and some people have smooth, straight-flowing locks? Is it a protein thing? A DNA thing? So we cover this a little bit, but your DNA maybe tells your stem cells what to do?

Yeah, so the DNA is probably telling the stem cells to make a certain structure that in the way the proteins are put together to make it curly, but we don't really understand how it's made, what the structure is. So chalk it up to luck. Yeah. It works for me. Cheryl wants to know, why does my hair hurt if I go too long between washes? Wow, it hurts.

I don't know. I've been there before. I've taken it down out of a pony and been like, oh, I need morphine. Yeah, but dirty between washes. I don't know. I don't know either. Okay. I'll look into it.

Looked into it. So some scientists think it's that yeast I was just talking about earlier or the new-found bacteria imbalance doing its damn thing and overgrowing and causing inflammation around the follicles themselves. Also, when it's dirty, chances are it's in a nest of a hairball on top of your scalp pulled up and put in ponytail bondage away from the eyes of the world. And that can also hurt. I want you to know that right now, my hair looks like a matted coconut on top of my head

and I get it, sister. Sarah Wright wants to know, why does hair grow in differently after losing it due to medical treatments? Oh, that's a really good question. I think it's because the hair follicle changes. Like we talked about with the aging hair follicles sometimes, the medical treatments probably will change the number of stem cells or add cells or remove cells. Like chemotherapy kills the active hair, right, but leaves the stem cells.

So that's why when you go into, when you have cancer treatment, you take chemotherapy. You lose your hair, but it grows back because the stem cells are still there. And why does chemotherapy kill the hair in particular? So it kills the most actively dividing cells that are reproducing. And the target is really the tumor, because those are actively dividing cells. But it will also kill your hair, your intestinal cells. That's why people get nausea and your immune system. Those are the three most highly proliferative or dividing cells in your body.

Why do some types of chemotherapy not kill, not make your hair fall out? They, there are different ways that chemotherapy drugs are designed. And some of them don't target proliferative cells, but do different things. Okay. And so then you don't get a loss of hair. Okay. Yeah. My dad's on chemo and he has a full head of hair.

He's had a full head of hair forever to the point where we're like, dad, are you wearing a wig? Tug on it. It's all mine. But he hasn't lost his hair with chemo. That's good. That's nice. He's just hashtag blessed.

Yes. I mean, other than having cancer. Yeah. Sorry, dad. Um, Annemarie wants to know why do some people have, okay, that's another curly hair question. A lot of curly hair questions, someone with curly hair, this is like, it's our diabetes. It's our thing that we just can't manage, but we can't care. Side note.

I know that having hair that expands in humidity isn't as bad as diabetes. Please don't at me. I'm just saying, both take an intimate awareness of one's bodily management. Also, hair gets frizzier when it's dehydrated because the cuticles are like, yum, yum, yum, yum, yum, yes. Give me that water. Like your hungover friend at a music festival. Now, some serums moisturize and others that are silicone based just block the water and

then they kind of build up on the hair shaft. I have no product recommendations for you and I apologize, but I'm sure the internet has some. Um, Brian Edge wants to know, why do I occasionally get these really thick hairs in my beard? They're much darker than their comrades. What's happening? So again, it's the cells that are attaching to the hair follicle that are making it a different structure.

And then it's darker because there's more melanin, that product that's made by the melanocytes that is pumping into it to make it darker. I always think it's interesting how dude's beards are sometimes like orange, but their face hair or their hair is brown. Yeah. Yeah. So during development, the cells that are going to make the pigment, they come from what's called the neural crest and they kind of migrate from like the spine area into

the different regions. And so they populate the beard differently than the scalp. What? Yeah. Was this part of, did you find this out in your research? Not my research, but someone's research. Yep. Wow.

So red beards, I always wonder about that because I'm like, it doesn't match at all. Right. You know what I mean? Like this copper face carpet and then like, what's happening? You know? Yeah. Interesting. A little further poking around reveals that red beards are caused by a mutation on the

MC1R gene. So if you have two mutated genes, you're a ginger all the way, but only one of them can cause red hair to pop up in weird places. Like for example, your handsome face. Mark Larson wants to know, can you get stem cells from hair? Like, can you harvest them? I can. I know how to.

Really? How do you do it? Mm hmm. You take the skin and you treat it with an enzyme that's going to basically break up all the bonds between the cells. And, and then we can use a machine that we call a flow sorter, where we basically sort them out from the other cells. Is there something about their weight or their size that makes them easier to sort?

No, it's the proteins that they have on their surface. So we can use that to our advantage to get them away from the other cells in the, in the tissue. Does that know is it, it's a proteins, but not the carbohydrate. So this is not glycobiology related. Well, you could, we could use some carbohydrates if we knew. But most often we use specific proteins. Okay.

Now, true or false, you went on a date with someone who listens to this podcast and started talking about science and he knew a little bit about glycobiology. Did that win points with you? True. Yes. We win. Is it hard to find people to date who are science literate? Yes.

Really? So he's like glycobiology. That's why I love this podcast. Now that I've discovered it, it's amazing. I just wanted to confirm that rumor. Yes. Amber and Jonathan Mead, uh, Amber and Jonathan Mead have a joint question. How does gray hair work?

Why do some strands turn gray earlier than others? And, uh, and I, they say, I feel like I've seen hair that's gray at the root, but not the rest of the strand. And I will say that my temples are very professorial. They're very George Clooney in the temple area. Why is that? So like, like stem cells that grow the hair shaft, there are stem cells for the melanocytes that put the color in the hair.

And when those cells die, you have a gray hair. Oh, and what can cause that stress can cause those cells to die? No. Yep. So that's not a myth. You know, I feel like they always show side by side of like before they were president, after they were president. Yeah, stress.

Exactly. The gray hair is crazy. Yeah. My, my grandma, completely gray by 30. She also had 11 children. Wow. Yes. A little stress in there.

A little bit. Stress. Although I feel like you hit a point where it's just like, you don't even know how many kids you have and they have to raise each other. That's true. I guess not that I know, I don't experience, but yeah. Okay. So I didn't know that stress can do that.

BTW, when I was writing this, a friend happened to randomly text me to say she found a hair that was white at the end and darker at the root. And I was like, girl, I'm writing the Trichology episode. And she was like, what, no way. Anyway, I looked it up and it's called stuttering and a hair can pick up pigment as it grows. It's like, oh, shit. Whoops.

Oops. Here you go. I love that it's like our melanin, our melanin cells are like out to lunch. Yes. But again, thigh hairs working overtime. Um, Sarah Nichelle says, is it possible that shaving off all your hair changes the way your hair grows? Or is that just a myth?

I think it's a myth. Okay. Um, there's really no evidence. But that said, usually when people start to shave, they're going through puberty and there's lots of hormonal changes. So they think that the hair, they shaved and now their hair is like thicker. But it's probably just hormonal changes. Would you say this is causation is not correlation?

Correct. Okay. Have you heard of the no poo movement, by the way? No. It's no shampooing. Oh, okay. I don't know why of all the things they decided to call it no poo. And I was like, does this have to be with poop?

Because I don't want to know. No. It's, I'm like, can they call it sham no instead? Sham wow, you'll be saying wow every time. But yeah, some, some people just don't wash their hair. Feelings, thoughts. I don't think it matters. Okay.

Leanna Moss wants to know, what is it about the sun that makes it lighten hair? And how does adding lemon juice help? So yeah, how does bleaching hair even work? So it's stripping the pigment out of the hair. Okay. So that's what the chemicals do when you get your hair lightened. That's how these beautiful blonde locks, which are, no, that's not much. It's not much.

It's enhanced. It's very enhanced. Okay. So I tried to look into this and the heat of the sun opens the cuticle and the acidity of the lemon juice oxidizes the melanin and changes the structure. So it appears colorless. This is all like on a molecular microscopic tiny level. Do you recall as a kid looking at it sells in hair under a microscope at all?

No. Yeah. I'm not like, I wasn't like, I love skin. Yeah. I got a study skin, you know. I love hair, you know, it was more just how does, how do tissues regenerate? Okay. I'll study skin as a model for that.

Right. I mean, I have a couple of microscopes, like two microscopes, and I'm not, I'm not going to lie to you. I have plucked out a mustache hair and looked at it under the microscope. Yeah. Did you see the bulb at the bottom? Yeah. Yeah.

That's where all the proliferative cells are. I had no idea I was looking at proliferative cells, but I was like, why is this goddamn thing such a bristle? I'm disgusting. I'm going to die alone. Julie wants to know, I am hairy alone. Julie wants to know what products and or routines help keep hair healthy and why? Does oil help?

Does it help to put coconut oil in here? Do you think or is it dead? Like get over it. It's dead. Well, so, you know, the structure of what's outside your body is can be helped by oils or anything that can help it. You know, like I like conditioner because it makes my hair feel like, but in order for your hair to grow, you need good food.

Like you're starving yourself or on a diet. It's not going to grow as well. Um, what about sugar versus protein? So I personally, so I started doing like this high protein diet and I think it's like makes my hair grow crazy. Really? Yes. And if you think about it, your hair is full of protein.

So I kind of want to do this experiment and see. Julio Garcia wants to know what is going on through your body when you lose a patch of hair, can severe stress cause you to lose a patch of hair? What causes it to grow back? Thank you. Yes. Stress can cause, and so stress, that hormone that I mentioned that causes milk to be produced.

It also is produced in your body when you're stressed. Prolactin. Prolactin. Okay. And so it can, it stalls the hair growth. So it can tell, it tells the stem cells stop. And so then no hair grows. So then when you're not stressed anymore, it comes back cause the stem cells are

still there. So possibly if your hair is falling out, it is a good smoke alarm saying perhaps your life is on fire a little bit. Yeah. You deserve to get some massages, get some massages, maybe get off Facebook a little bit if need be or whatever. Okay. So hair falling out is a, is a good indication perhaps there's some stress

happening or autoimmune stuff. If you see more than a normal. Okay. Cause some people are high shedders apparently where you shed a lot. Yeah. And that's, you know, just their biology. But patches could be stressful. Correct.

Good to know. Um, Diana Damaskin wants to know, I would love to hear some hair myths dispelled any flim flam that you want to debunk, like anything that people think about hair or skin that you're like, that is not correct. There's a lot. I mean, most of the products that we buy, we don't, there's really not any real biology behind that it helps your hair or not. Um, the only thing that helps with alopecia or balding is Rogaine.

Okay. So you keeps it in the hair, it keeps it in the hair growth cycle. So it doesn't die and not grow anymore. But that means you have to use it every day. Otherwise, once you stop, the hair will stop growing and then it will never grow again. What chemical in it? It's called minoxidil. So minoxidil, aka Rogaine, was an accident kind of Dr.

Charles A. Chitzi was an associate professor of medicine at the University of Colorado and was doing some trials on a blood pressure medication in the early 1970s and was like, huh, dang, you test subjects are looking good. Now the increased blood flow from this blood pressure medication helped the hair follicle size widen and then it promoted the growth phase of the hair. So there was a whole drama with Dr. Chitzi who consulted a colleague being like, what, this is crazy, right? And his colleague was like, don't worry about it.

And then his colleague obtained some of the formula unethically from the lab and then was testing it and trying to patent it behind Chitzi's back. There was a whole lawsuit. You go to someone for help and they do you dirty. It's like Bravo, but with lab coats. There's propitia to a pill. Correct. Yeah, it's the same drug. I remember the ads being like, if you're pregnant,

don't even think about touching a propitia, right? Which I don't know why. Yeah, I don't know either. OK, I'll look into it. So propitia is also known by its plucky name, finasteride. And it was originally used, also an accident, to treat enlarged prostates. Once again, researchers were like, you look amazing. So it reduces androgen signaling, the prostate gland and the scalp.

And because it's a hormone disruptor, if you're growing a human, you should not touch or swallow or snort the stuff or your tiny baby will be like, mom, what, what is this shit? 400 million men in America are balding and they spend over a billion dollars a year fighting it as someone who's lived in LA and dated actors. I've seen propitia in many medicine cabinets. Also, no judgment as discussed. I have lasered my entire human body and I pluck mustache hairs.

And there is no shame in sprucing yourself up. And also, we're fine the way we are. So if we want to, let's spend that money making more water slides and having more pet weasels. Celeste Marie Ward-Altis wants to know, PS, she's my sister. Why can some people grow their hair really long and others can't? By the way, my sister has amazingly long hair and her husband is a heavy metal guitarist whose hair is to his waist.

So, yes, she doesn't seem to have this problem, but she must be asking for others. Yes. So this is again, how long it stays in the growth cycle growth stage. So if it stays there for many years, you can get really long hair. Who was that woman in the seventies that had her hair? Crystal Gale. Yes. Crystal Gale. I can't think about hair and not think about Crystal Gale. Yes. I don't. I could not tell you what song she sang,

but I do know that she had hair to her ankles to her ankles. Right. She had a long growth cycle stage, growth stage. Yeah. She also had a lot of resolve. Yeah. Because at some point I'd be like, I flushed my hair down the toilet again. You're out of here. Give me the clippers. Do you know what I mean? Totally.

I don't have time for that shit. No. Can you imagine her plumber's like, never cut it, bitch? I wonder. I got to look her up and see what she's doing. Yeah, exactly. God. She cut her hair. I hope she's got like a K plus eight, just a spiky little up. She's like, I had it. Quick double check. Country singer Crystal Gale, from a few decades back,

is actually Loretta Lynn's younger sister. I did not know that. And also, I don't think she ever chopped her hair off. It was down to the floor. She said that in terms of extra care, it's like having another child. But it's her trademark. What are you going to do? If you're going to pick a trademark, I don't know.

I say do something less labor-intensive. Like, I'm an adult who wears a bib all the time. That's my deal. OK, so Celeste Marie Ward-Altis and her husband, Lee, probably long grow cycle and their daughter, Sophia, long, shiny hair. Yeah. So I guess it's in the jeans. Yeah. I have a llama fur.

He even wants to know, do hair and nails grow at different rates? In your work, researching the regeneration of skin and hair, do nails kind of part of the same bag? So nails are also an appendage. And they have their own stem cells. Wow. And we're just starting to learn about those.

I don't study them, but there's a woman in New York that I know that does. Yeah. Do they have different rates? Like, can your nails grow really fast, but your hair is like boom, boom, boom, boom? That's the international noise for slow. But yes, they definitely have different rates. And I do feel like, OK.

Well, we did talk a little bit about protein and hair growth, but let's talk about biotin gummies that everyone on Instagram is pimping out. Yeah. Does biotin and other vitamins to be vitamins help your skin and hair regenerate faster? I don't know of any data to suggest that that is true. OK.

Good to know. Yeah. I did start taking biotin for other reasons. Once a doctor recommended it, my face broke out like crazy. Oh, yeah? Yeah. I kind of want to study biotin and see if it really does work, but.

The holler. Yeah. Just text me from the lab at midnight and be like, bingo. I got it. Yeah. Get your gummies. Jennifer Ruby asked, can your hair turn gray if you get really scared?

Or is that just a thing that happens in cartoons? Cartoons. Yes. Oh, my gosh. Jonathan Robinson says that he visited the museum of human hair. Where is that? Independence, Missouri. Oh, my gosh.

I need to go there. And saw a distressing number of family trees constructed entirely of hair, presumably from the family members represented. So this and the entire museum really was a stuff of nightmares. Have you ever heard of family trees constructed out of hair? No.

No. So here we go. This place is in a building that looks like it would house your mom's suburban dentist or a chiropractor. But it's called Leila's Hair Museum. And it costs $15 cash only to get in. It was started by a hairdresser who

was so taken with this tiny wreath of woven hair that she began a frenzy of collecting more and more memorial pieces and hair art, including elaborate woven sculptures and clippings from, are you ready for this list? Marilyn Monroe, Michael Jackson, Queen Victoria, Elvis, JFK, and Lincoln. What?

Now, according to the website, Leila's Hair Museum is the only hair museum in the world. It has over 600 hair wreaths, 2,000 pieces of jewelry made of human hair. The website then informed me that, quote, there are neck pieces called sepia, which is a scene painted with pulverized hair. When hair is pulverized into a powder,

it can be mixed with paint and used as a medium for painting scenes. I want to note that at the time I was writing this, I was feverishly trying to finish this episode. I went all morning without eating. I had finally taken a break to make a smoothie. Right as I started poking around this site, and I was like, oh, man, I'm drinking a smoothie, pulverized

hair, I'm out. But if you're in independence, go and report back. I think more like a found objects collage. Wow. No. I'm going to look it up. I'll explain to you if I see pictures. Michael Melchior says, what's the deal on this chemical

in McDonald's fries being a baldness cure? Asking for me. No. No. That's all I want to say about that. Government propaganda. So recently, a team of Japanese scientists were studying shaft generation upon intracutaneous

transplantation into the backs of nude mice using this substance that is also used when frying McNuggets and French fries. Now, the ingredient itself doesn't help hair grow, but it helps the thing that does. So between an unpronounceable chemical that prevents oil foaming in McDonald's fryers and the backs of nude mice and the pulverized hair,

I'm just, I'm never finishing this movie. I'm never going to finish it. I can't do it. Lexi Federer wants to know, I find it repulsive when other people's fallen out hair touches my skin. Is this a condition? What would be driving me to have this reaction? It's funny, though, because if a hair is attached to someone's

head and it touches my arm, that's fine. But yeah, as soon as it's out. Yeah, I think it's gross, too, like the hair and the drain, and you have to get it out. I don't know. Maybe it's something about bacteria and disease. I don't know. It must be something ingrained that's part of it.

That's a dead appendage. Yeah, that's been hanging out. Do you have you ever used one of those velcro drain snakes? Yes. They work. Yeah. And it's gross. It's so gross.

You can get them for like $5 or $6 or whatever, as seen on TV section. It's just like a wire with a piece of velcro. You just, I've pulled out things the size of rats. It's so gratifying, and it's disgusting. Disgusting. It doesn't smell good. I don't know if you ever smelled it, but it doesn't.

No. Yeah, I know. Every spring, I'm like, oh, it's about that time. Drain cleaning season. Yes. So gross. I am so thirsty and so hungry. Why is this episode so gross?

Also, get one of those velcro drain snakes instead of liquid plumber for hair clogs. It's better for your plumbing and probably the environment. It's disgustingly satisfying. Michelle Sullivan wants to know, when I was younger and just started shaving my legs, I would turn on the cold water in order to give myself goosebumps.

Because when I shaved while having goosebumps, it always seemed to give me a closer shave. Is there any truth behind that, or was I just a total weirdo taking cold showers? So that's actually a really good question. So goosebumps are caused by there's a muscle that's attached to every hair that the goosebumps pull the hair up and make it stand up.

The erector pili muscle, yes. And so I can imagine that it pulling up would push more of the hair shaft out of the skin. And so I think she might be onto something. I guess that keep thinking, what if you got goosebumps enough where you shaved the goosebumps off? Yeah, I don't think they don't write. They're not that raised.

OK. Oh, that's a good tip. Yeah, it is a good tip. I'm curious about that. But I can't imagine that it's that much hair growth for what it's worth in a cold shower. That's a good point, diminishing returns. Yeah, I feel that's true.

So what is the hardest part about your job? What's the crappiest part? Grant writing right now. Oh, grant writing, really? The funding level for the National Institutes of Health is terrible. It has not been raised, really, at all since Clinton. What?

Since I was in graduate school. So Valerie tells me that right now, 14% of grants actually get funded. There are 12 pages long to write, and there is an 86% chance you'll get denied. So it's just like a lot of writing for nose, nose, nose. It's like, I don't really want to be great at writing grants. I want to be great at doing science.

But it's different. You can't do the science unless you submit the grant, and unless it's one of the 14% that's approved. Correct. So a little bit more money for grants would be nice. Necessary. I really think we're in a crisis. Yeah.

Do you think that it's affecting the number of people that go into research? Definitely. So grant writing can suck it. Yeah. Yeah. What's your favorite thing about what you do? What makes you super, super excited?

Discovering new things about biology is awesome. But I think also mentoring the students and watching them grow over the years is really amazing. Just seeing them grow their own hairy wings and fly. Yes. They become little scientists. It's very cool. So future of hair, any predictions?

Well, I do think we'll be able to control hair growth in a different way, probably. There's sort of been, like in the 50s, there was a lot of hair research. And probably in the 2000s when we discovered the stem cells, there's sort of been a renaissance in hair research. And so there's lots of hair researchers now. And so we're learning a lot.

It's crazy. The hair follicle is crazy. I think it's so complicated. It's amazing. I love to know that there are some dead ones hanging out just like waiting to jump ship. They're ready. In all the wrong places.

And the stem cells are then like, ah, we've got to regrow. Yeah. Thicker, faster, the wirier. You're like, no. Mixed messages. Oh my god, this is so fascinating. I love this episode. I had no idea that I'd get to talk

to someone about trichology. This is amazing. Thank you so much for being on. Yeah, yeah. So you know what? Remember, feel free to ask smart people all the dumb questions you want, because they're super nice. And we're all going to die anyway.

To find out more about Dr. Valerie Horsley's work, you can visit horsley.yale.edu. And to learn more about her campaign, you can check her out on Twitter and Facebook at the handle at Valerie4CT. Or you can look up her grassroots organization, Action Together Connecticut, if you are so inclined. Now, oligies is at oligies on Twitter and Instagram.

I'm at Ali Ward with 1L on both. And there's an oligies podcast group on Facebook that shares all kinds of just wicked, killer science news and links. Thank you, Boston resident, Hannah Lipo, and Aaron Talbert for that. And you can join patreon.com slash oligies to keep the podcast afloat.

And my amazing editor, Stephen Ray Morris, paid up proper. Stephen, thank you. You are the best. And also, as a patron, you'll get little bonuses, like raw episode cuts and some videos. And you get to submit your questions to the oligists and get to know what topics are coming up next. For as little as $0.25 an episode, a dollar a month

gets you in. You can also support by buying merch at oligiesmerch.com. And thank you, Bonnie Dutch and Shannon Feltas for helping manage that. Nick Thorburn wrote and produced the music. And if you stick around this long, you know you get a secret, right? Did you know that?

Is this your first time listening to this song? Anyway, at the end of the episodes, I tell you a secret. I'm going to Brené Brown myself and be vulnerable and say that I really love discovering I have a hidden zit on my scalp. Because it's like, oh, I have a secret pimple. I get to check in on. No one knows about it.

Also, it's springtime. And over the course of just this last week, my shower drain has slowly gotten slower. So you know what that means, maybe? My reward for sending all these aside to Steven is I'm going to let myself snake the shower drain later and see what horrors lurk within. And I'm sorry, this secret is gross.

Please very sincerely never send me pictures of your own drain clogs. I will barf. OK, thank you. I hope you're not having smoothies. Bye bye. Hack-a-dermatology. Homiology.

Cryptozoology. Litology. And technology. Meteorology. Nectarology. Nephology. Cereology. Pseudology.

All I can say is, Sam, wow.