I seem to be acquiring more grey hairs with every passing day at the moment, so I thought I might as well take a look at them under the microscope. Magnfied x400, it's clear that the grey ones aren't so much grey as colourless (foreground) - increasing numbers of my hair follicles have given up making melanin pigment.
Could be a survival mechanism akin to Kettlewell's observations on the moth Biston betularia, which suggested that the melanic variety avoided predation in polluted industrial areas. Grey hair is a sign of just how clean the North-east is these days, I suspect. Have you noticed others going grey around you? Are people who don't go grey mysteriously disappearing? Subject for another PhD thesis, surely.
ReplyDeleteNow you come to mention it, Rob, there don't seem to be so many non-grey people around as there used to be. Maybe it's all those red kites that they've introduced up here, picking them off...
ReplyDelete