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Hairdos, and don’ts

In my still-evolving curiosity about hair (well, my own anyway) it has occurred to me to ask why we don’t have more. I mean we are mammals and, except for a few like elephants and whales I suppose, most mammals have lots of hair, don’t they? So, the question still remains: why the difference? What am I missing?

For the record though, I do acknowledge that we humans are apparently covered by fine little vellus hairs which, except in sunlit profile, are pretty much invisible on most of us when we approach the morning mirror. For some reason, our vellus goes rogue on the head and sundry other politely covered areas, though.

Although I occasionally allow barbers on my head, I make no attempt to comb my over-arm hair, and usually leave my legs and unmentionables lying fallow -my beard too, for that matter, although I do trim it whenever I spot cereal around my lips after breakfast; I also make liberal use of napkins at restaurants.

And yes, I’ve read the evolutionary theories about the supposed need for thermoregulation in hunter-gatherers as they ran along hot African savannahs, and the resultant epigenetic switching off of some of their hair follicle genes to convert them into sweat glands. Very clever I’m sure, but don’t chimpanzees run and swing through hot sunlit jungle trees? Come on, eh?

And then there was the idea that when we started running on two legs rather than on all four it meant that sun was hitting mostly the tops of our heads, so there was an unsuccessful attempt to winnow out bald people in evolution’s incessant meddling, only foiled at the last moment by the invention of back-combing. Uhmm, I might have left some stuff out…

None of these answered the question of whether this was really the proper balance though, eh? I mean, why didn’t hypothermia factor into natural selection’s inscrutable plans as we migrated out of Africa into colder climes? Biological anthropologists are known for their clever defences of Darwin, and one such apologist, Tina Lasisi, from the University of Southern California (who specialises in the science of hair and skin), felt that there was a stronger pressure to not overheat, rather than one to just stay warm.[i] And so when they (we, I guess) migrated north, we developed fire, clothes, brown fat, and cuddling to keep us at the right temperature. Great! Mystery solved…

Still, there is another clever, if unpleasant, explanation: ectoparasites. Mark Pagal, a professor of evolutionary biology at the University of Reading and his colleague Walter Bodmer at the University of Oxford recognized that parasites are probably one of the strongest selective forces in our evolutionary history, and biting flies for example, spread disease and are specialized at depositing their eggs in hair and fur. So… why weren’t apes and their hairy ilk evolved away?

Although initially puzzling, an obvious explanation occurred to me: apes groom. I’d never noticed humans -even the hairy ones- checking each other for fly-eggs; maybe they don’t teach it in school anymore though, and so that particular way of life has fallen into the sear, the yellow leaf… Anyway, I live alone.

And of course, they (we -I keep forgetting) invented clothing, which can be laundered once a week or so, along with the bedsheets and socks that are too stiff to wear after a while. But nevertheless, human clothes still harbour lice. Scientists apparently know this from dating the skeletons (or whatever) of body lice which only live on clothing… Evolution is still working on that, I think. Okay, I’m not really sure.

And what about the difference in hair distribution in males and females? Easy: sexual selection: you use what you’ve got, eh? Men with beards and uncombed wavy hair were able to do away with antlers to win mating rights -or maybe it was just stronger pheromones, or something… I prefer deodorants myself, so I suppose that’s why very few people continue talking to me on their way off the dance floor.

But one of my totally bald friends thinks all the fuss over hair is nonsense. “When I first began to lose my hair,” he explained, “I started wearing hats -I was embarrassed, eh? I soon discovered that you can’t wear one when you’re out for dinner though -people said it was rude- so I tried using hair spray to keep the bald spot covered with what was left.” He smiled at that.

“Pretty soon there wasn’t enough hair left to spray, so I decided to get it all shaved off. I mean what the heck, it was heading that way anyway, eh?” He chuckled at using the word.

Nobody in my family had ever been bald, so I took a closer look at his head. I have to admit it did look rather good –polished, in fact. “Interesting idea, Fred -no sense going bald in dribs and drabs, eh? The no-hair look suits you I think…” Actually, I’d never known him with hair, so I lied about it; he beamed with pleasure nevertheless.

“A lot of the men in my family are well on their way to a patchy baldness, but none of them have opted for the Yul Brynner look yet… except me,” he added with a proud wink.

I looked at him curiously when he said Brynner; I live in a cultural vacuum, I suppose…

“Yul Brynner of Rodger and Hammerstein’s The King and I fame… Remember? He was famous for his shaved head.” He rolled his eyes when my face remained blank. “Anyway, as most of us with balding heads do, I researched the genetics of baldness, hoping the rumour of increased testosterone was the reason…” He hesitated, and I could see a twinkle in his eyes as he watched my face.

“And…?” I just had to ask; I’d heard the same rumours, although I’d always thought they were rationalizations.

His smile diminished somewhat. “Not sure about testosterone part, but I did learn that all humans seem to have kept the genes for a full coat of body hair, and some sort of genomic regulation currently stops them from being expressed.”

I’d heard that too, but with my full head of hair, I had hoped he would add that more recent research had discovered that older, hirsute people like me might be exhibiting a renewed surge of pheromones -although I’m not sure what I’d do with the bonus at my age. So, I just smiled and unsuccessfully tried to resist the temptation of touching his scalp to decide if it was as smooth as it looked.

I bet bald guys wish they still had antlers at times like this, though, eh?

[i] https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230310-why-dont-humans-have-fur

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