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Hair Follicle Cryobank

Freeze, for reimplantation in your old age, your youthful and sturdy hair follicles.
  (+10)(+10)
(+10)
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Oh, you expect to have a receding hairline at some age, but why worry about it now? You're at the peak of your youth and bounce back from anything in great style; you could pull out half your hair and it would grow back.

Why don't you?

You've a ready-made source of dreadlocks and rippling stubble that you can tousle into your senescence and beyond -- dark and handsome until you're nothing but memories and photos.

Many options:
 1. True believer - One follicle. You think cloning will guarantee you unlimited refills.
 2. Bushmaster -- Any number of one inch squares. Great for covering lost ears, eyebrows, or topknots.
 3. The Mullet -- A complete one inch wide diameter strip across the crown. Many variations.
 4. The "Old Smoky" -- Whole scalp removed and covered with a graft. A choice that plainly says, "Not now!"

Professional standards rigidly applied.

reensure, Sep 18 2005

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       But wouldn't the chemical messengers that tell your elderly follicles to shut off have precisely the same effect on your youthful follicles?   

       I guess it depends whether the growth pattern of your hair is programmed directly into the follicles, or somewhere else in the body.
DrCurry, Sep 18 2005
  

       A common cause of alopecia seems to be poor scalp circulation, so for this to work at all there would need to be a full blood supply to the follicles included. I don't think this would work unless you were scalped in the area required, but what might work is a skin graft hormonally treated to grow large quantities of hair, then transplanted onto the head. Terminal hair stimulated by androgens does not disappear under the influence of oestrogens since male-to-constructed female transsexuals need electrolysis to destroy hair follicles. It wouldn't be quite the same as a full head of hair because the hair wouldn't grow very long and depending on whence it came it might be pubic or axillary hair, which would look a bit strange and be a somewhat disturbing thought.
Cancer chemotherapy patients sometimes use a freezing cap to prevent chemotherapeutic agents preventing mitosis in the follicles, which works quite well, so you can sort of freeze hair for short periods.
nineteenthly, Sep 18 2005
  

       shoot the chemical messenger then.
po, Sep 18 2005
  

       The chemical messenger is often testosterone, and many people losing hair wouldn't be very keen on that.
nineteenthly, Sep 18 2005
  

       don't we all have that testosterone? the world would probably be better off with less of it.   

       now toblerone is a whole differnt kettle of fish.
po, Sep 18 2005
  

       I would certainly be better off without it, but that's my problem. Most men seem rather attached to it for some strange reason.
nineteenthly, Sep 18 2005
  

       re: "poor scalp circulation". Damn, I have to take some time and think about that one.
reensure, Sep 18 2005
  

       Some testosterone is converted to DHT, and this DHT is responsible for balding.* So, preventing the conversion seems a good way to address hair loss. In later years, when the body produces less testosterone, there should naturally be less DHT to signal hair loss. Young follicles implanted at this time may just stick around. +   

       *That’s the one and only thing I know about balding.
Shz, Sep 19 2005
  

       <subtle reference>Failing this, we could all just go play with plungers...
RayfordSteele, Sep 19 2005
  
      
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