May 5, 2009 • 21 mins
Humans aren't truly naked apes, but other primates put us to shame when it comes to body hair. Why? Tune in to hear Josh and Chuckle discuss the theories and hypotheses behind human hair growth and distribution.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know
from house Stuff Works dot Com? Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, Chuck Bryant. How are you doing? Man?
I am well, that sounded very unsure. Are you feeling
(00:20):
the same way? Is it? Is it? Chuck and I
are recording on a Monday. Jerry's forcing us to um.
Usually we record on Fridays. It's the last thing we
do in the week, which is why we're so chipper
and up drunk and um. You know this is a
this is a shift. It's different. Yeah, it's like a funeral.
It's harsh or buzz plus, it's kind of um, cloudy
(00:41):
out and the weather affects me. I have a sad
seasonal effective disorder, do you really? Yeah, a little bit
like diagnosed self diagnosed? Yeah? Are you also self medicating? Uh? No, okay,
I'm not into that. Give for you, Chuck. Um, all right, Well,
I have a question for you far away. Did you
ever when you were a kid, did you have one
(01:02):
of those little plastic shavers, little razors? Yes? Did you?
Did you use it or did you just leave it around? Yeah,
I remember getting into my dad's shave cream and playing
around like I had facial hair. Me too, And now
we do have facial hair. I know. It's kind of like, Um,
when I was a kid, I when I was like seven,
all I wanted to do was mow the lawn right
(01:24):
more than anything else. And then come eight, I, um,
I actually got to mow the lawn and the first
three times were heaven, and after that I was like,
you were such a chump. Yeah, the same thing was shaving.
It was it was like really exciting, but now it's
things just get kind of mundane after you do them
a number of times. Huh. Yeah, I was pretty late
to the late bloomer to the facial hair too. So
(01:47):
later on in high school, like my friend Jim that
you've met, Yes, he is of Arabic descent, And Jim
literally had a mustache when he was like the eighth grade.
It was one of the stin ones and he was
he's a drummer in a band, and so he had
a little like the mullet and the mustache. Yep, I
knew I knew a kid like that to. His name
was Ron. He was a Polish descent, and he actually
(02:09):
his voice was deep in the third grade and his
stash started coming around a little A little after that.
I developed a little later. I'm still developing, are you?
Your voice is still changing and it is very nice,
Chuck sexy? Um, have you ever wondered, though, why? How
about this first segrede. Have you ever wondered, Chuck, why
humans even have body hair? I hadn't until I read
(02:33):
this article, and then it kind of occurred to me. Yeah,
that's kind of weird. Why do we have hair? Actually?
This is this isn't the this isn't the first time
I thought of this. Yeah, did you think that when
you were a little kid? No anthropology student? Okay, yeah
I didn't. I wasn't down with anthropology. I remember how
we were just talking about shaving the face. Did you
know that you or I will probably spend about a
(02:54):
month out of our lives. Uh, shaving less than that,
but yeah, below average. I shaved. I shaved once a week.
To God, we are made for each other. Wow, all right,
well let's get to this all right? Yes? Why dose?
Why why does your hair grow? The hair on your
head grow longer than the hair on your arms, Chuck Bryant. Well,
(03:21):
before we go there, Josh, we need to understand a
little bit about hair. Can we go there? Uh? What
happens is when you're talking hair growth, you have cells
inside the hair follicles. They divide and they multiply, and
then space fills up inside the follicle and it pushes
older cells out because hair is actually just like the
protein keratin and dead cells right that have hardened. Right. Yeah,
(03:46):
that sounds kind of gnarly when it is like that.
Did you know like something like of all dust is
dead skin cells? Really? Yeah, it's like bed bugs. Not
to get off on another tangent, but all that stuff
grosses me out. Never bring a black light into a
hotel room. That's all I have to say. So, Uh,
as space calls up, pushes the older cells out, like
(04:09):
I was saying, and those cells harden and exit, the
follicle informs a hair shaft, which you said is mostly
dead tissue and keratin. Correct. So that's basically what's going on.
But it happens in spurts. It rests, and it active
in resting phases. So the the active phase, the growth
phase is called the antigen phase. And then there's the
(04:30):
telligent phase and those are resting phases. And it's strangely enough,
these the your different parts of your body go through
different phases at different times, which is what you're talking
about with the arm in the head, right, So your
arm hair has much longer telligen or resting phases than
your hair head your head hair head hair, yes, which
(04:52):
I usually just call hair, Which is why this is
going to be a really confusing podcast, I know, because
there's different types of hair on different parts of your body.
So yeah, let's let's key about that right now. If
we just say hair, we're talking about the head, the scalp. Okay, okay,
everything else is facial hair, arm hair. You know, there's
a qualifier. But let's go ahead and get the different
types of hair out of the way. Let's do it.
(05:12):
What you have in the womb um are little tiny
hairs called lenu goo. That's that's how I pronounced it.
To pick it. Uh. Then after you're born, babies grow vellus,
which is fine un pigmented hair. It yeah, that's what
I just Yeah, little baby's heads are all soft. It's
so cute there um, And then you hit puberty most
(05:34):
of us and the vellus hairs give way to terminal hairs,
and they're a little more coarse. And that's what you
find underneath your armpits and around your genital area or
on my back on shoulders, hairy back, Holy cow. Really yeah,
I've never seen aim of your shirt off. I'm like
class four or Robin Williams level of Harry. Wow, I'm
(05:56):
not quite there. It's up there. Yeah, yeah, I'm not
that bad. I have the creeper that come around the collar,
but Emily um waxes me from time to time. My
brother in law is shaved by my sister down to
where the collar of his undershirt comes. And if you
ever see him with this his shirt off, it's like hair,
no hair. It's really hilarious, like the red nacktan kind
(06:17):
of Yeah, that's nice. So then back to the hair
that we all think about. The hair on the scalp,
the thicker hair, eyebrows, eyelashes. That's also a terminal hair,
which is the same as um, what a lot of
people call pubic hair. Yes, it's actually the same type
of hair. You might not think so, but it is.
It's terminal. Okay, So, and then a different kind of hair,
(06:40):
this is distribution, not the type of hair. Uh is
androgenic and that's like your facial hair, your chest hair,
your arm hair. And it's usually stimulated by um, the
hormone testosterone. Right. So there you have and then you
add all that up together, Josh, and you get about
five million into visual hairs for an average adult, which
(07:02):
is strange because that's about the same density as a chimpanzee.
Did you know that I did? And this is where
it gets a little more interesting. I'll let get all
this science stuff, get all these terms out of the way. Um,
now we're talking about chimps, and this is something that
I did not know until I read this. Uh, we
actually don't have uh fewer hairs than a chimpanzee. It's
(07:26):
the size of the hair actual. Yeah, they're shorter and
less coarse. So we have about the same number of
hair follicles, or at least the same density of them
as a chimp. Yeah. I bet no one would answer
that unless they knew. No, but we could. Well, we
should totally go to TRIVI to night And now the
dozens of people who listen to our podcasts couldn't know
that too exactly. Um, but we also on the chimps.
(07:48):
We also share the same hairless parts, which is uh, lips, palms,
and soles of the feet. No hair, My I have
hair on my palms. Well, I'm not gonna go there. Hey, um, Josh,
do we need to talk about some theories? Yeah, this
is I like this. This is why I've thought about
(08:08):
this before, because we were taught this kind of stuff
in anthropology apology classic. Okay, so my favorite theory, this
is the one that makes the most sense to me,
is that we started losing our hair when we became bipeds.
If you look at um most primates, they have a
tendency to walk on their knuckles as well as their
their feet, and that's how they move most quickly, which
(08:31):
would require you have a lot of hair on your
back because then that whole area is exposed to the
sun exactly the whole point of hair. Well, actually there's
two points, right. One is to regulate body heat to
keep keep your body warm, sure, and the other is
to protect from UV radiation from the sun. Okay, pretty cool.
(08:51):
So once we started walking up right, we need a
hair on our head, some of our shoulders, maybe a
little on our back, some on the chest. Uh, and
then you know everything else is kind of sexual, right, absolutely. Uh,
I think about one third of our bodies are exposed
to sunlight once we started walking upright, Right, That's the
one that makes most sense to me. But that's pretty
(09:11):
far from the only theories. What else you got, Well,
there's another one I thought was kind of cool that
um one theory was the early man was a water
dwelling ape. So since they're in the water, uh, you know,
you don't need hair on the water. You don't see
a lot of hairy fish, no, nor hippopotami or rhinos
or any elephants. Yes, it's been a lot of time there,
(09:33):
and they're all mammals. They have very sparse hair growth, right,
because they're in the water a lot. Absolutely, So I
kind of like that one. Yeah, that one makes sense.
The other one that makes sense to me is that
about one point seven million years ago, we went from
a basically a forest dwelling species to kind of moving
more out in the open, right, And since we're in
(09:54):
the forest, we would not be exposed to the sun
as much, and it would be cooler because out of
the sun, so we would need more hair to keep
our our body temperatures higher. Right, once we move out
into the open savannah, we don't need the hair anymore.
Why do we move out? There? Was that when we
started developing, and we always move for food. It's usually food.
When is the basis of migration? That's all the good meat? Was? Yeah? Okay,
(10:18):
So the thing is is if we lose our hair
and we're now exposed to the sun, chuck. We still
need to protect ourselves from UV rays, but we need
to use a method that doesn't keep us hot. Right, sure,
enter skin pigment. Okay, this news to me. Okay, so
actually they have there there was this researcher in a
two thousand doctor Rosalynd Harding and Oxford, and she went
(10:41):
back and traced the evolution of the m C one
our gene. This is the gene that produces either a
dark pigment or a lighter reddish pigment depending on where
we live in our exposure to the sun. They closely
lived to the equator the darker pigment. And you're going
to because it protects skin from sun cancer or skin cancer,
(11:05):
that kind of thing. Sun cancer, like that sun cancer,
it's the worst kind um. So Professor Harding or doctor Harding,
I'm sorry, traced the mutations on this gene as they're
found in African populations, which, strangely enough, there are no mutations.
I'm sorry, there's no variation among Africans of this gene.
And if you go and you look at Asians, you
(11:26):
look at people of Nordic descent, Native Americans, they all
we all have the m c one ur gene, but
there's variations on it and Africans. It doesn't matter where
you go on the African continent. That's you find the
same exact gene with the same exact mutations, and that's
the birthplace of humanity. Yes, many believe so, which I
(11:47):
was also surprised we apparently only UM exited Africa within
the last like fifty thousand years. I thought it was
way further back than that, but I read an article
in the New York Times. It's a different and they
know sure UM. So anyway, Dr Harding traced the the
evolution of this gene through mutations back to about the
(12:07):
last time it swept through the African population, and she
found that that was about one point two million years ago.
Right now, the point of this is that when this
gene when this mutation would have swept through. That's darkening
everyone's pigment. Um, we would have needed it then, so
(12:28):
for at least the last one point two million years.
Dr Harding posits that we've been hairless. Cool. Huh, yeah,
it all makes sense a love when it comes together
like this, it all makes sense. But I also like
biological and anthropological abnormalities that don't add up. I know
you do. Let's hear about it. Well, now I don't
(12:49):
have Well, are you talking about the hairy guys, the
very hairy guys? Yeah, that actually wouldn't have set up,
but I'll take it. Um. We are talking about hypertrichosis, which,
um some people might have seen they called they're called
the wolf people. I don't know if they call themselves that, well,
they may not, but that's that's what they're called. In
the research I've done, Victor Larry and Gabriel Danny Ramo
(13:11):
Scummez are in a family of nineteen that spanned five generations.
That's their name. No, No, a family of what a
family of nineteen? Yeah, exactly, Um, well, last nineteen over
five generations. There is bound to be some genetic mutations
in a family of nineteen. Absolutely, so they all suffer
from that rare condition. It's called generalized or congenital generalized
(13:34):
hypertrichosis in their case. And basically what that means is
a lot of body hair. We're talking of their body
coming hair. I was looking at a picture that you have,
and you can basically see their eyes, yeah, and around
the lips, oh yes, and around the lips they look
kind of like they're wearing hairy ski masks. Yeah. Yeah.
And is that they're one of their little siblings. It
(13:57):
knows says it's one of their fans. Okay, they're taking
a picture with one of their fans. And there's also
a man in China named you uh xin Juan and
his claimed fame. He has the same thing. It's called
the harriest man in China, and hair covers ninety of
his body and he is trying to become a singer
apparently and make it big as a singer, which I
(14:17):
thought was pretty cool. Yeah. I think the the Gomez
Brothers have him beat big times well by two ye
not much and um and you was actually made his
entertainment debut at the age of six in a movie
called A Hairy Child's adventure. So early on he felt
like he was exploited somewhat, and I'm sure he was ashamed,
(14:38):
but he's learned to live with it and now um
kind of embraces it, which is kind of cool. A
hairy child's adventure. I'm looking that one up. Yeah, but
it's riveting. So that is hyper trichosis in a nutshell. Um,
you know, there's a lot more. Maybe we should do
a full podcast on this is pretty interesting actually, but
they you know, shaving, plucking, electrolysis, and laser removal. They
are different cosmetic things you can do to to help
(15:00):
that out, you know. Um, I also did a te
bit of research on that, and you can there's an
acquired version, there's genetic version, there's an acquired version, and
through malnutrition you can you can develop this well, so
your starvation diet you better watch out, buddy. That explains
the hair on the back. Is it sprouting more and
more lately? Yeah, it is, and it's getting kind of
(15:21):
Billy goat esque. Yeah. I had a pet goat. Did
you know that? They did not? It's good stuff. How
is its hair growth pattern? Yeah? Of course goats are
really great pets, actually very affectionate. Yeah, they are there. Um,
they can cause some serious allergies though, Yeah, I didn't
know that. You know you do now, So here's the
you nestor my goat, Hey nestor, thanks for listening. You
(15:44):
want to do one last thing? Sure? Okay, So what's
the deal with growing hair and armpit hair? I mean,
these places aren't exposed to the sun any longer they are.
It's at like Camp Sunshine nudist resort, right you tell me.
Camp Sunshine is actually a camp for kids with cancer,
So I doubt that's not a new distro sword. Oh yeah,
well there's another word that you're thinking of. The there's
(16:08):
there's no this this it's Camp Sunshine and upstate New York. Okay, yeah,
it's that's funded by the same people. Strangely, you know
it's awesome. Um. No, the the the the theory no,
I guess hypothesis not a theory yet would be or
behind why we have growin hair and aren't hair is
because these places are um where we emit the most.
(16:29):
Yes see, do you see where I'm demonstrating right here?
Chuck up down here. Um, these are where we we
produce the most pheromones and The hypothesis is that the
hair acts as kind of like an amplifier for these
pheromones it traps in the smells mind does interesting? Yeah, yeah,
what a grizzly topical. Christen Conger wrote this, right, Yeah,
(16:51):
you go Conger. If you want to read it, you
can type in why do humans have body hair? In
the handy search part how stuff works dot com. Um. Okay,
so we did that all right, So that's why do
humans have body here? Right, Chuck? Yeah, I guess although
you know, if we ever make it back into the water,
prepared to go bald, right, And it's funny hair human
(17:12):
head hair is become one of the more distinct features
that you know, people have hair dues, and it's it's
not it's a very cosmetic, cosmetic thing. Yeah, you know,
it's not just I mean, it's there for our to
protect our head, but it's also to look cool. Yeah,
that's what I'm trying to say. Get a mohawk maybe. Okay, Well,
(17:34):
let's let's plug something, Chuck, you you plug, Okay, I'll plug. Um.
So let's plug the blogs. Chuck and I have a
blog called stuff you Should Know appropriately Enough, and we
just post about all sorts of cool stuff. Chuck does
a podcast Goodness Round Up every Friday too, um and
(17:55):
uh yeah, we post each once a day every day
during the week and you can find it on the
right rail on the homepage of how Stuff Works dot com.
And there's our blog plug Perfect, which means sr mail
Time Josh. Today, I'm just going to call this the
Great Australian toad Wart Correction Cast. We missed quite a
(18:18):
few things on this one. I'm not ashamed to admit
that happens occasionally, and it happened this time. So here
we go with corrections for the dow toads calls works.
I see that part of it's been redacted, right because
someone was wrong. They wrote in and said that toads
were not in Perth. But I went back and listen,
and you said that they were heading towards Perth, and
I sent the guy linked to an article that verified
(18:39):
that they are indeed heading towards Perth and are gonna
make it there. So beyond that one, Josh, at one
point you said there are no predators that have figured
out how to eat the cane toad because of the
toxins on its back. And apparently, uh Australian woman wrote
in and said that crows have learned how to flip
them over and attack the belly. Yeah, the cane toad.
But that's an pleasant sensation, so thank you for that.
(19:02):
We don't have names. I apologize about that, folks. I
was short on time. We also mispronounced HPV, which is
I know, go ahead and say the real world, hum,
human peppioma virus, yeah right, yea, And we said Pavlova
virus and that was my fault. As we all know,
Pavlova is a dessert and it was a famous ballet dancer.
(19:23):
And uh, you and I are both into eating dessert
and watching ballet, so we probably at the same time too,
So that was you know. I apologize about the mispronunciation. Josh.
He said that there are alligators he said it kind
of in a flip way in Australia. Not true, it's crocodiles.
Were we drunk during there, No, we weren't. But the
list cos on I mispronounced salasilic acid. I apologize about that,
(19:46):
and that is the last correction, but we we should mention.
A couple of folks wrote in and talked about ways
to get rid of words that we did not know,
and duct tape was the most uh well regarded. I
mean a lot of people said, if you put duct
tape on it and leave it for a little while,
it will get rid of your work. How long is
a little while? Did you get an impression? No? I
didn't until the word goes away? Yeah, I would guess so.
(20:09):
And then Chris from l A. He calls it Lower Alabama,
which obviously think it's funny. He said breast milk and
I haven't heard that one, so that is unverified, but
that's what Chris says. Chris just may have the thing maybe,
so yeah, so well, yeah, thank you for all those corrections.
Do you want to get the oak Claire thing out
of the way now, I'll go ahead. So, uh, it's
(20:30):
not you Claire Wisconsin, it's l Claire Wisconsin and Wisconsin
folks wrote in and said no, no, no, yeah, actually yeah,
I guess we should say it's O clear wiscantin Wisconsin. Yeah.
So yeah, thanks for everybody who wrote in to correct us. Um,
whether you were correct or not. Uh, you know, if
you mentioned Perth, that's okay. The ass he's loved it
though they love hearing podcasts about themselves. We got a
(20:52):
lot of good feedback right now, we'll have to do
that a little more often. Yeah, okay, So if you
want to send us any any words of encouragement, any
words of derision, and anything at all, you can shoot
an email to Stuff podcast at how stuff works dot
com For more on this and thousands of other topics.
(21:12):
Is it how stuff works dot com m HM brought
to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready,
are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know
from house Stuff Works dot Com? Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, Chuck Bryant. How are you doing? Man?
I am well, that sounded very unsure. Are you feeling
(00:20):
the same way? Is it? Is it? Chuck and I
are recording on a Monday. Jerry's forcing us to um.
Usually we record on Fridays. It's the last thing we
do in the week, which is why we're so chipper
and up drunk and um. You know this is a
this is a shift. It's different. Yeah, it's like a funeral.
It's harsh or buzz plus, it's kind of um, cloudy
(00:41):
out and the weather affects me. I have a sad
seasonal effective disorder, do you really? Yeah, a little bit
like diagnosed self diagnosed? Yeah? Are you also self medicating? Uh? No, okay,
I'm not into that. Give for you, Chuck. Um, all right, Well,
I have a question for you far away. Did you
ever when you were a kid, did you have one
(01:02):
of those little plastic shavers, little razors? Yes? Did you?
Did you use it or did you just leave it around? Yeah,
I remember getting into my dad's shave cream and playing
around like I had facial hair. Me too, And now
we do have facial hair. I know. It's kind of like, Um,
when I was a kid, I when I was like seven,
all I wanted to do was mow the lawn right
(01:24):
more than anything else. And then come eight, I, um,
I actually got to mow the lawn and the first
three times were heaven, and after that I was like,
you were such a chump. Yeah, the same thing was shaving.
It was it was like really exciting, but now it's
things just get kind of mundane after you do them
a number of times. Huh. Yeah, I was pretty late
to the late bloomer to the facial hair too. So
(01:47):
later on in high school, like my friend Jim that
you've met, Yes, he is of Arabic descent, And Jim
literally had a mustache when he was like the eighth grade.
It was one of the stin ones and he was
he's a drummer in a band, and so he had
a little like the mullet and the mustache. Yep, I
knew I knew a kid like that to. His name
was Ron. He was a Polish descent, and he actually
(02:09):
his voice was deep in the third grade and his
stash started coming around a little A little after that.
I developed a little later. I'm still developing, are you?
Your voice is still changing and it is very nice,
Chuck sexy? Um, have you ever wondered, though, why? How
about this first segrede. Have you ever wondered, Chuck, why
humans even have body hair? I hadn't until I read
(02:33):
this article, and then it kind of occurred to me. Yeah,
that's kind of weird. Why do we have hair? Actually?
This is this isn't the this isn't the first time
I thought of this. Yeah, did you think that when
you were a little kid? No anthropology student? Okay, yeah
I didn't. I wasn't down with anthropology. I remember how
we were just talking about shaving the face. Did you
know that you or I will probably spend about a
(02:54):
month out of our lives. Uh, shaving less than that,
but yeah, below average. I shaved. I shaved once a week.
To God, we are made for each other. Wow, all right,
well let's get to this all right? Yes? Why dose?
Why why does your hair grow? The hair on your
head grow longer than the hair on your arms, Chuck Bryant. Well,
(03:21):
before we go there, Josh, we need to understand a
little bit about hair. Can we go there? Uh? What
happens is when you're talking hair growth, you have cells
inside the hair follicles. They divide and they multiply, and
then space fills up inside the follicle and it pushes
older cells out because hair is actually just like the
protein keratin and dead cells right that have hardened. Right. Yeah,
(03:46):
that sounds kind of gnarly when it is like that.
Did you know like something like of all dust is
dead skin cells? Really? Yeah, it's like bed bugs. Not
to get off on another tangent, but all that stuff
grosses me out. Never bring a black light into a
hotel room. That's all I have to say. So, Uh,
as space calls up, pushes the older cells out, like
(04:09):
I was saying, and those cells harden and exit, the
follicle informs a hair shaft, which you said is mostly
dead tissue and keratin. Correct. So that's basically what's going on.
But it happens in spurts. It rests, and it active
in resting phases. So the the active phase, the growth
phase is called the antigen phase. And then there's the
(04:30):
telligent phase and those are resting phases. And it's strangely enough,
these the your different parts of your body go through
different phases at different times, which is what you're talking
about with the arm in the head, right, So your
arm hair has much longer telligen or resting phases than
your hair head your head hair head hair, yes, which
(04:52):
I usually just call hair, Which is why this is
going to be a really confusing podcast, I know, because
there's different types of hair on different parts of your body.
So yeah, let's let's key about that right now. If
we just say hair, we're talking about the head, the scalp. Okay, okay,
everything else is facial hair, arm hair. You know, there's
a qualifier. But let's go ahead and get the different
types of hair out of the way. Let's do it.
(05:12):
What you have in the womb um are little tiny
hairs called lenu goo. That's that's how I pronounced it.
To pick it. Uh. Then after you're born, babies grow vellus,
which is fine un pigmented hair. It yeah, that's what
I just Yeah, little baby's heads are all soft. It's
so cute there um, And then you hit puberty most
(05:34):
of us and the vellus hairs give way to terminal hairs,
and they're a little more coarse. And that's what you
find underneath your armpits and around your genital area or
on my back on shoulders, hairy back, Holy cow. Really yeah,
I've never seen aim of your shirt off. I'm like
class four or Robin Williams level of Harry. Wow, I'm
(05:56):
not quite there. It's up there. Yeah, yeah, I'm not
that bad. I have the creeper that come around the collar,
but Emily um waxes me from time to time. My
brother in law is shaved by my sister down to
where the collar of his undershirt comes. And if you
ever see him with this his shirt off, it's like hair,
no hair. It's really hilarious, like the red nacktan kind
(06:17):
of Yeah, that's nice. So then back to the hair
that we all think about. The hair on the scalp,
the thicker hair, eyebrows, eyelashes. That's also a terminal hair,
which is the same as um, what a lot of
people call pubic hair. Yes, it's actually the same type
of hair. You might not think so, but it is.
It's terminal. Okay, So, and then a different kind of hair,
(06:40):
this is distribution, not the type of hair. Uh is
androgenic and that's like your facial hair, your chest hair,
your arm hair. And it's usually stimulated by um, the
hormone testosterone. Right. So there you have and then you
add all that up together, Josh, and you get about
five million into visual hairs for an average adult, which
(07:02):
is strange because that's about the same density as a chimpanzee.
Did you know that I did? And this is where
it gets a little more interesting. I'll let get all
this science stuff, get all these terms out of the way. Um,
now we're talking about chimps, and this is something that
I did not know until I read this. Uh, we
actually don't have uh fewer hairs than a chimpanzee. It's
(07:26):
the size of the hair actual. Yeah, they're shorter and
less coarse. So we have about the same number of
hair follicles, or at least the same density of them
as a chimp. Yeah. I bet no one would answer
that unless they knew. No, but we could. Well, we
should totally go to TRIVI to night And now the
dozens of people who listen to our podcasts couldn't know
that too exactly. Um, but we also on the chimps.
(07:48):
We also share the same hairless parts, which is uh, lips, palms,
and soles of the feet. No hair, My I have
hair on my palms. Well, I'm not gonna go there. Hey, um, Josh,
do we need to talk about some theories? Yeah, this
is I like this. This is why I've thought about
(08:08):
this before, because we were taught this kind of stuff
in anthropology apology classic. Okay, so my favorite theory, this
is the one that makes the most sense to me,
is that we started losing our hair when we became bipeds.
If you look at um most primates, they have a
tendency to walk on their knuckles as well as their
their feet, and that's how they move most quickly, which
(08:31):
would require you have a lot of hair on your
back because then that whole area is exposed to the
sun exactly the whole point of hair. Well, actually there's
two points, right. One is to regulate body heat to
keep keep your body warm, sure, and the other is
to protect from UV radiation from the sun. Okay, pretty cool.
(08:51):
So once we started walking up right, we need a
hair on our head, some of our shoulders, maybe a
little on our back, some on the chest. Uh, and
then you know everything else is kind of sexual, right, absolutely. Uh,
I think about one third of our bodies are exposed
to sunlight once we started walking upright, Right, That's the
one that makes most sense to me. But that's pretty
(09:11):
far from the only theories. What else you got, Well,
there's another one I thought was kind of cool that
um one theory was the early man was a water
dwelling ape. So since they're in the water, uh, you know,
you don't need hair on the water. You don't see
a lot of hairy fish, no, nor hippopotami or rhinos
or any elephants. Yes, it's been a lot of time there,
(09:33):
and they're all mammals. They have very sparse hair growth, right,
because they're in the water a lot. Absolutely, So I
kind of like that one. Yeah, that one makes sense.
The other one that makes sense to me is that
about one point seven million years ago, we went from
a basically a forest dwelling species to kind of moving
more out in the open, right, And since we're in
(09:54):
the forest, we would not be exposed to the sun
as much, and it would be cooler because out of
the sun, so we would need more hair to keep
our our body temperatures higher. Right, once we move out
into the open savannah, we don't need the hair anymore.
Why do we move out? There? Was that when we
started developing, and we always move for food. It's usually food.
When is the basis of migration? That's all the good meat? Was? Yeah? Okay,
(10:18):
So the thing is is if we lose our hair
and we're now exposed to the sun, chuck. We still
need to protect ourselves from UV rays, but we need
to use a method that doesn't keep us hot. Right, sure,
enter skin pigment. Okay, this news to me. Okay, so
actually they have there there was this researcher in a
two thousand doctor Rosalynd Harding and Oxford, and she went
(10:41):
back and traced the evolution of the m C one
our gene. This is the gene that produces either a
dark pigment or a lighter reddish pigment depending on where
we live in our exposure to the sun. They closely
lived to the equator the darker pigment. And you're going
to because it protects skin from sun cancer or skin cancer,
(11:05):
that kind of thing. Sun cancer, like that sun cancer,
it's the worst kind um. So Professor Harding or doctor Harding,
I'm sorry, traced the mutations on this gene as they're
found in African populations, which, strangely enough, there are no mutations.
I'm sorry, there's no variation among Africans of this gene.
And if you go and you look at Asians, you
(11:26):
look at people of Nordic descent, Native Americans, they all
we all have the m c one ur gene, but
there's variations on it and Africans. It doesn't matter where
you go on the African continent. That's you find the
same exact gene with the same exact mutations, and that's
the birthplace of humanity. Yes, many believe so, which I
(11:47):
was also surprised we apparently only UM exited Africa within
the last like fifty thousand years. I thought it was
way further back than that, but I read an article
in the New York Times. It's a different and they
know sure UM. So anyway, Dr Harding traced the the
evolution of this gene through mutations back to about the
(12:07):
last time it swept through the African population, and she
found that that was about one point two million years ago.
Right now, the point of this is that when this
gene when this mutation would have swept through. That's darkening
everyone's pigment. Um, we would have needed it then, so
(12:28):
for at least the last one point two million years.
Dr Harding posits that we've been hairless. Cool. Huh, yeah,
it all makes sense a love when it comes together
like this, it all makes sense. But I also like
biological and anthropological abnormalities that don't add up. I know
you do. Let's hear about it. Well, now I don't
(12:49):
have Well, are you talking about the hairy guys, the
very hairy guys? Yeah, that actually wouldn't have set up,
but I'll take it. Um. We are talking about hypertrichosis, which,
um some people might have seen they called they're called
the wolf people. I don't know if they call themselves that, well,
they may not, but that's that's what they're called. In
the research I've done, Victor Larry and Gabriel Danny Ramo
(13:11):
Scummez are in a family of nineteen that spanned five generations.
That's their name. No, No, a family of what a
family of nineteen? Yeah, exactly, Um, well, last nineteen over
five generations. There is bound to be some genetic mutations
in a family of nineteen. Absolutely, so they all suffer
from that rare condition. It's called generalized or congenital generalized
(13:34):
hypertrichosis in their case. And basically what that means is
a lot of body hair. We're talking of their body
coming hair. I was looking at a picture that you have,
and you can basically see their eyes, yeah, and around
the lips, oh yes, and around the lips they look
kind of like they're wearing hairy ski masks. Yeah. Yeah.
And is that they're one of their little siblings. It
(13:57):
knows says it's one of their fans. Okay, they're taking
a picture with one of their fans. And there's also
a man in China named you uh xin Juan and
his claimed fame. He has the same thing. It's called
the harriest man in China, and hair covers ninety of
his body and he is trying to become a singer
apparently and make it big as a singer, which I
(14:17):
thought was pretty cool. Yeah. I think the the Gomez
Brothers have him beat big times well by two ye
not much and um and you was actually made his
entertainment debut at the age of six in a movie
called A Hairy Child's adventure. So early on he felt
like he was exploited somewhat, and I'm sure he was ashamed,
(14:38):
but he's learned to live with it and now um
kind of embraces it, which is kind of cool. A
hairy child's adventure. I'm looking that one up. Yeah, but
it's riveting. So that is hyper trichosis in a nutshell. Um,
you know, there's a lot more. Maybe we should do
a full podcast on this is pretty interesting actually, but
they you know, shaving, plucking, electrolysis, and laser removal. They
are different cosmetic things you can do to to help
(15:00):
that out, you know. Um, I also did a te
bit of research on that, and you can there's an
acquired version, there's genetic version, there's an acquired version, and
through malnutrition you can you can develop this well, so
your starvation diet you better watch out, buddy. That explains
the hair on the back. Is it sprouting more and
more lately? Yeah, it is, and it's getting kind of
(15:21):
Billy goat esque. Yeah. I had a pet goat. Did
you know that? They did not? It's good stuff. How
is its hair growth pattern? Yeah? Of course goats are
really great pets, actually very affectionate. Yeah, they are there. Um,
they can cause some serious allergies though, Yeah, I didn't
know that. You know you do now, So here's the
you nestor my goat, Hey nestor, thanks for listening. You
(15:44):
want to do one last thing? Sure? Okay, So what's
the deal with growing hair and armpit hair? I mean,
these places aren't exposed to the sun any longer they are.
It's at like Camp Sunshine nudist resort, right you tell me.
Camp Sunshine is actually a camp for kids with cancer,
So I doubt that's not a new distro sword. Oh yeah,
well there's another word that you're thinking of. The there's
(16:08):
there's no this this it's Camp Sunshine and upstate New York. Okay, yeah,
it's that's funded by the same people. Strangely, you know
it's awesome. Um. No, the the the the theory no,
I guess hypothesis not a theory yet would be or
behind why we have growin hair and aren't hair is
because these places are um where we emit the most.
(16:29):
Yes see, do you see where I'm demonstrating right here?
Chuck up down here. Um, these are where we we
produce the most pheromones and The hypothesis is that the
hair acts as kind of like an amplifier for these
pheromones it traps in the smells mind does interesting? Yeah, yeah,
what a grizzly topical. Christen Conger wrote this, right, Yeah,
(16:51):
you go Conger. If you want to read it, you
can type in why do humans have body hair? In
the handy search part how stuff works dot com. Um. Okay,
so we did that all right, So that's why do
humans have body here? Right, Chuck? Yeah, I guess although
you know, if we ever make it back into the water,
prepared to go bald, right, And it's funny hair human
(17:12):
head hair is become one of the more distinct features
that you know, people have hair dues, and it's it's
not it's a very cosmetic, cosmetic thing. Yeah, you know,
it's not just I mean, it's there for our to
protect our head, but it's also to look cool. Yeah,
that's what I'm trying to say. Get a mohawk maybe. Okay, Well,
(17:34):
let's let's plug something, Chuck, you you plug, Okay, I'll plug. Um.
So let's plug the blogs. Chuck and I have a
blog called stuff you Should Know appropriately Enough, and we
just post about all sorts of cool stuff. Chuck does
a podcast Goodness Round Up every Friday too, um and
(17:55):
uh yeah, we post each once a day every day
during the week and you can find it on the
right rail on the homepage of how Stuff Works dot com.
And there's our blog plug Perfect, which means sr mail
Time Josh. Today, I'm just going to call this the
Great Australian toad Wart Correction Cast. We missed quite a
(18:18):
few things on this one. I'm not ashamed to admit
that happens occasionally, and it happened this time. So here
we go with corrections for the dow toads calls works.
I see that part of it's been redacted, right because
someone was wrong. They wrote in and said that toads
were not in Perth. But I went back and listen,
and you said that they were heading towards Perth, and
I sent the guy linked to an article that verified
(18:39):
that they are indeed heading towards Perth and are gonna
make it there. So beyond that one, Josh, at one
point you said there are no predators that have figured
out how to eat the cane toad because of the
toxins on its back. And apparently, uh Australian woman wrote
in and said that crows have learned how to flip
them over and attack the belly. Yeah, the cane toad.
But that's an pleasant sensation, so thank you for that.
(19:02):
We don't have names. I apologize about that, folks. I
was short on time. We also mispronounced HPV, which is
I know, go ahead and say the real world, hum,
human peppioma virus, yeah right, yea, And we said Pavlova
virus and that was my fault. As we all know,
Pavlova is a dessert and it was a famous ballet dancer.
(19:23):
And uh, you and I are both into eating dessert
and watching ballet, so we probably at the same time too,
So that was you know. I apologize about the mispronunciation. Josh.
He said that there are alligators he said it kind
of in a flip way in Australia. Not true, it's crocodiles.
Were we drunk during there, No, we weren't. But the
list cos on I mispronounced salasilic acid. I apologize about that,
(19:46):
and that is the last correction, but we we should mention.
A couple of folks wrote in and talked about ways
to get rid of words that we did not know,
and duct tape was the most uh well regarded. I
mean a lot of people said, if you put duct
tape on it and leave it for a little while,
it will get rid of your work. How long is
a little while? Did you get an impression? No? I
didn't until the word goes away? Yeah, I would guess so.
(20:09):
And then Chris from l A. He calls it Lower Alabama,
which obviously think it's funny. He said breast milk and
I haven't heard that one, so that is unverified, but
that's what Chris says. Chris just may have the thing maybe,
so yeah, so well, yeah, thank you for all those corrections.
Do you want to get the oak Claire thing out
of the way now, I'll go ahead. So, uh, it's
(20:30):
not you Claire Wisconsin, it's l Claire Wisconsin and Wisconsin
folks wrote in and said no, no, no, yeah, actually yeah,
I guess we should say it's O clear wiscantin Wisconsin. Yeah.
So yeah, thanks for everybody who wrote in to correct us. Um,
whether you were correct or not. Uh, you know, if
you mentioned Perth, that's okay. The ass he's loved it
though they love hearing podcasts about themselves. We got a
(20:52):
lot of good feedback right now, we'll have to do
that a little more often. Yeah, okay, So if you
want to send us any any words of encouragement, any
words of derision, and anything at all, you can shoot
an email to Stuff podcast at how stuff works dot
com For more on this and thousands of other topics.
(21:12):
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