Trolls are on my mind today, 
I never cared much for them, but my wife 
So I thought now would be a good time to do a weird science post where I explain the affliction known as Spun-glass hair or as we liked to call it, "Troll Hair".
Troll dolls were originally created in 1959 by Danish fisherman and woodcutter Thomas Dam. Dam could not afford a Christmas gift for his young daughter Lila and carved the doll from his imagination. Apparently other kids wanted one too and "Dam Things" (actual name of his toy company), was born.
But have you ever seen someone with "troll hair"?
When I was in the 6th grade, the troll toy fad had suddenly swept my school. Everybody especially the girls, either had them or wanted them, including a new student by the name of Ray.
Ray was unique, partly because she had the strangest hair I had ever seen and partly because she was my first kiss. I was the local bad boy and I guess she was the closest thing we had to "the bad girl".
There were several times she was sent home because "her hair was a distraction to the class". I think we all believed her parents just didn't stress grooming with her. In retrospect, she really did look sort of like Struwwelpeter
Later on I learned the truth. She had troll hair. Hair that no amount of combing, brushing or product could tame.
She had a huge collection of troll dolls, but she was also a living troll doll of sorts due to a medical condition.
While we've known for some time, that the individual hairs are quite distinct and different from the hair of a normal person, the root cause (pun intended) of this has not been well understood until recently.
In someone with Spun-glass hair, each strand is triangular or heart-shaped at the cross section and grooved from root to end. This is in contrast to either straight or curly hair which is either round or oblique.
The subsequent shape of the shaft provides for a sturdier, more rigid and less pliant structure. Similar in many ways to the difference between cardboard and paper. It's sturdy and springy enough that nothing can really keep it down. Even using gel or mousse will just freeze it in place, causing it to remain sticking outright.
But what causes this?
Recent science tells us that there are three genes responsible for the hair shaft disorder resulting in frizzy, dry and pale locks that make flat combing impossible.
These genes are TCHH, PADI3, TGM3. If ANY of these fail then you have troll hair!
This is an affliction of the young. Generally by their teenage years they outgrow it. Furthermore, there are no known health effects from it, but there have only been a hundred or so cases medically documented. Really who goes to the Dr over hair?
In the case of Ray, her parents finally tired of fighting the school over it and took her to a barber. The barber shaved her head and gave her a wig.
By the time we were 14 or so she had outgrown it but this was the time of the "big hair" fad and jokes about putting up your bangs to catch an airplane were pretty common. So maybe she didn't outgrow it completely?
Now you might ask, why shave it?
Why not do it in pony tails or pig tails, or some other cute girly hair style?
The reason is that at least in Ray's case, the stiffness of her hair was providing for severe discomfort.
She once described the feeling of having her hair brushed or styled as similar to when you accidentally bend a fingernail. In fact it was Ray that taught me about the many strange similarities between hair and nails.
Point blank, in her case at least, Spun-glass hair is hair that actually hurts.
I don't see anything in the literature about it, so it's only an anecdote but there is another strange disease that causes the formation of horns in humans.
These are literally horns that grow out of your head, because your hair follicle wakes up one day and decides to morph into a finger nail cuticle. Here's some more info but I advise avoiding lunch before clicking that one.
This is a type of cancer, but cancer is really just out of control cell growth.
PADI3 has been implicated in this particular cancer because of it's role in terminal differentiation of the epidermis.
You see, your fingernails and your hair are actually the same material, i.e. it's just keratin in slightly different forms. This is also the same material that many animal horns are made out of and the same material rodent teeth are made out of.
Thus it's at least conceivable that my first serious girlfriend has the potential to one day grow horns.
Thank god I'm going bald.
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