While I’m not really blue about it, my hair, for the uninformed (which constitutes entirely of random visitors) is getting increasingly sparse. The density is decreasing and the hair is fading into nothingness. In other words I suffer from a hereditary condition known as male pattern baldness.

This I don’t have a problem with. I can live with my head being hairless (mind you I’m not sure I like the increased risk of skin cancer, but at least sun cream is easier to apply when their isn’t any hair getting in the way). But what I want to know is when will it be gone? Is there a way to measure the rate of hair loss and so predict roughly when my head will be at a particular level of baldness?

Apparently according to the one web page I read on the subject (making me an expert) as you go bald your hair follicles get smaller and smaller until they stop making hair. While that happens each hair strand gets thinner. So I think these facts can be harnessed to design a way of quantifying the rate of hairloss.

I reckon that the rate of hairloss can be determined by periodically measuring two things:

  1. follicle density - how many active hair follicles per cm2; and
  2. hair strand weight - the diameter of the hair strand

I hypothesize that the rate is not linear and can be effected by environmental conditions. So to conduct a proper experim…

Hang on, I think I might just spend more time searching the net. Despite all this talk I’m not going to conduct any research - I might as well just use someone elses.