The Hairy Hominid
Curious Cases
BBC
4.8 • 4.1K Ratings
🗓️ 30 May 2016
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Our science detectives answer the following perplexing problem, sent in by Hannah Monteith from Edinburgh in Scotland:
"How does leg hair know it has been cut? It doesn't seem to grow continuously but if you shave it, it somehow knows to grow back."
Hannah consults dermatologist Dr Susan Holmes, from the Hair Clinic at Southern General Hospital in Glasgow, to discover why the hairs on your legs don't grow as long as the hairs on your head.
Adam attempts to have a serious discussion about the evolutionary purpose of pubic hair with anatomist and broadcaster Prof Alice Roberts.
If you have a scientific mystery for the team to investigate, please email: curiouscases@bbc.co.uk
Presenters: Hannah Fry, Adam Rutherford Producer: Michelle Martin.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to episode four, four of Curious Case of Season Two this week. |
| 0:07.6 | It's a little bit rude. It is quite rude. X-rated almost. It's not X-rated. It's just biology. |
| 0:13.6 | We're talking about body hair and we were, the question was specifically about leg hair, but |
| 0:20.5 | I got to interview Alice Roberts, the delightful Alice Roberts since she was talking about |
| 0:25.4 | evolutionary biology and anatomy and inevitably we got to talking about what she described as |
| 0:31.2 | islands of hair. The interview for which I'm very sorry that I wasn't present for, |
| 0:37.6 | mostly consisted of Alice Roberts seeing just how far she could push Adam Rutherford |
| 0:44.0 | before he lost all professionalism and crumbled into a heap of giggling mess on the floor. |
| 0:50.6 | I've got to say that I've done a lot of interviews over the last few years, mostly with scientists and |
| 0:54.5 | that was really one of the hardest because I could tell she was toying with me a little bit like a cat |
| 1:02.6 | with a sort of wounded mouse and every time she mentioned some hairbrains, |
| 1:07.3 | thick hairbrained hairbrain theory about why we have particular regions of body hair, |
| 1:13.5 | I knew she was trying to get me to do that. Anyway, if you would like to hear Alice Roberts say |
| 1:18.0 | some things that we could not put on Radio 4 at midday during half term, then please listen on to |
| 1:25.5 | this ex-rated special cut podcast which has those delights there for you to behold. It's not |
| 1:32.6 | ex-rated, it's just biology, very naughty biology. |
| 1:36.8 | Today the curious case of the hairy hominid. |
| 1:45.5 | Hannah Monti from Edinburgh emailed curiouscases at BBC.co.uk with the following |
| 1:50.7 | conundrum. How does leg hair know that it's been cut? It doesn't seem to go |
| 1:55.5 | continuously but if you shave it, it somehow knows to grow back. |
| 1:59.3 | Yes, hair is a bit of a strange one when you stop to think about it. |
| 2:02.4 | How hairy are you Adam Rutherford? |
... |
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