Why Do I See Hair Everywhere? Trivia Quiz

Answer: Red

Natural hair colour is mainly down to the mix and amounts of natural pigments (known as melanin) in the hair. The white and grey hair found in older people is a result of loss of pigments. Unpigmented hair is white.

In humans there are three types of melanin although only two, namely eumelanin and pheomelanin, are found in hair. Pheomelanin is the one responsible for the red hair colouring. About 1-2% of the world's population are red-headed, with the biggest percentage populations being in Britain and Ireland.

Answer: Keratin

All are structural proteins however it is keratin which is the main one found in hair. It is also found in your nails and the outer layer of the skin. In other animals, keratin appears in horns, hooves, nails, claws, beaks, feathers and the baleen plates of whales. Spider and insect silk contains fibroins which are classed as keratins.

Collagen is the main structural protein in connective tissue, elastin is an elastic connective tissue and fibrinogen circulates in the blood. If you suffer a wound, the fibrinogen is converted to fibrin to form the basis of blood clots in order to reduce the bleeding.

Answer: Water

Hair can absorb its weight in water. Water has the effect of increasing the elasticity of the hair. This can in some cases allow hair to be stretched by 30%, some sources say 50%.

Dry hair tends to be more brittle and prone to split ends. Alcohol dehydrates hair, so it has the same effect. Oil tends to coat hair rather than be absorbed by it but can help prevent hair drying out thus maintaining its strength. Except by virtue of trapping moisture in the hair, oil by itself does not appear to increase the elasticity of hair.

Answer: Identification of age

Insulation is the main reason for your head of hair, assuming you have one. Unlike the rest of your body, the head lacks a layer of fat. If you get wet hair or sweat, your hair can assist with evaporative cooling. UV protection is more effective the more hair cover you have.

Your eyelashes have several functions including protecting the eyes from dirt and sweat, as a touch sensor (for example, of air movement) and for non-verbal communication. Then there is the role hair plays in mating rituals.

Answer: Age

Hair can provide forensic scientists with historic information of what has been in your blood. This includes medicines, some drugs, vitamins, alcohol and poisons. Hair, particularly if it includes the root, is potentially also a useful source of DNA and can be used for determining gender and paternity. Your hair will place you in one of three racial groups however it will not help determine your age.

Answer: Darker hair

All things being equal, people with darker hair have more copper and zinc in their hair than those with lighter hair colours. There is a myth going around that this is a sign of intelligence, however this is probably stems from another myth, the one about dumb blondes.

There are studies showing that there is no statistical difference in intelligence between people with different hair colour. It is actually more complex than that and mineral imbalances can be symptoms of various medical disorders.

Answer: Only inside the hair follicle

Only that part of the hair in the scalp is considered 'alive' as there is no biochemical activity in the visible part.

Hair is produced within a hair follicle. The cells at the bottom of the follicle are continually dividing and adding new cells to the hair shaft. As the older cells are pushed up, keratin filaments are incorporated into each hair cell. As the hair cells get towards the outer layers of skin, they lose their nuclei and organelles, metabolism stops and the cells are completely filled with keratin.

Answer: Russia

Peter the Great of Russia introduced the tax in 1698 during his push to modernise the country along western and central European lines. The tax was one of several targetted at the Boyars, Russia's elite nobility who opposed his agenda. Those paying the tax were required to carry a beard token to prove that they had paid.

In 1535, Henry VIII of England is said to have introduced a beard tax, which was graduated according to one's social status. Elizabeth I of England reintroduced the tax during her reign.

Answer: Cleaning up oil spills

Although hair does not absorb oil, the oil clings to the hair and so in effect hair acts as a sponge. Mats made from human hair clippings were used in the 2007 Cosco Busan oil spill in San Francisco to help mop up the bunker oil spilled. The mats were then seeded with oyster mushrooms which digested the oil, providing an eco-friendly way of dealing with the environmental problem.

The idea came to an Alabama hairdresser when he saw oil-soaked otters on TV following the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska. For the other applications, these have been done although not apparently trialled by NASA. In the case of the soy sauce, a Chinese company got into trouble in 2004 for doing this as only wheat, bran and soybean can be used legally.

Answer: Alopecia

Alopecia it is. The rest are linked to hairiness. A naturally bald person does not actually lose his (or her) hair follicles. Instead the hair produced by the follicles becomes progressively finer and less-coloured ,eventually ending up as vellus hairs, which are barely noticeable unlike the terminal hairs they replaced.