When first using the Foldscope I thought it would be interesting to look at a strand of hair from the human head. There are about 100,000 on the human head, so I figured a couple could be spared for this experiment. I first started looking at my own hair, looking at the shaft with the low resolution microscope.

Unfortunately, nothing overly interesting could come from just looking at these pictures. Also since I have dark brown hair, so neither the details of the cuticle overlay couldn’t be seen nor the cells inside.

I continued to think about what I could look at under this microscope, involving hair but something that was more interesting than just the brown strand seen in the first few pictures. While looking at my hair, in addition to realizing I needed a hair cut, I saw that I had a lot of split ends. So I took a pair of scissors and cut one strand of hair so it would have a fresh cut end and put it under the microscope, hoping to find some differences to a piece I just pulled from my head.

On the left, is the picture of the freshly cut hair, and the right is the end of a hair straight from my head. Interestingly enough is that the end of picture 2 almost resembles a cone. If you look closely, the edges are not perfectly straight either, they are frayed, and it is not uniformly cone shaped. This intrigues me because I wonder if all ends resemble this pattern? Or if certain hairs, depending on where they are located on the scalp (more towards the face or back of the head), fray easier; or over time have they evolved to become stronger to handle the wear and tear of everyday life? My thought process is that hairs towards the front of the scalp, ones by the face, might be stronger because they are more likely to be touched and/or pulled back behind ones ears (referring to those with long hair).

Soon after, winter break started and as I was welcomed home by my family and sisters dogs, and ideas for this task began to accumulate. (Mom I am sorry in advance) My mother colors her hair dark brown, similar to mine. I asked her for a piece of her hair.

Here is a picture of my mom’s hair. There is an X shape made with the hair, one half is grey and the other is brown. I found it interesting that naturally brown hair and dyed brown hair look very similar under the microscope. Maybe with a higher resolution microscope I could see if the normally transparent nature of naturally brown hair was still observed with died brown hair. Also I found interesting that hair cells in the naturally grey could not be seen, since the hair shaft is normally transparent. Before I began my question process I looked at one more set of hairs….my sister’s dog.

His name is Alfie, and he is a two year old energetic Jack Russell and when he comes to visit he sheds everywhere! His mark will forever be left by his loving personality and the dispersal of his short little white hairs. I spared little Alfie by using one of the hairs I found on a pair of my black pants, instead of pulling it off him.

This is what I found. I found it interesting that I could see the inside of the hair shaft in Alfie’s hair but not in my moms even though they’re natural hair was similar. Also I wonder why hair appears grey/white if the inside cellular material is dark? Lastly, the ends of Alfie’s hair evenly come to an end, where as compared to mine, seen at the top of this post, lack this even pattern. This might go back to my evolutionary question of strength of hair, or hair composition. Since dogs live very active lives, running around, through the backyard, rolling around in mud, is their hair constructed a certain way that it forms this uniform cone at the end? Also there isn’t the fraying pattern seen in the human end, is that unique to humans? Does it vary with hair length?  Do humans not posses this same pattern because of lifestyle? I wonder if other animals display different or similar patterns to either dogs or humans?

I am no expert on hair but the patterns I found were very interesting and lead to me ask questions about hair itself but also about the influence of life history on hair. These questions and microscope pictures offer insight on potential further study regarding hair on humans and other mammals.

I conducted this project as part of Professor Pringle’s EEB321 class at Princeton University.