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Accidental Find May Lead To a Cure For Baldness
kkleiner writes "Science is full of stories in which great discoveries are made by accident: the discovery of radiation, the discovery of the universe's shape through x-ray detection, and now perhaps the cure for hair loss. At the time they returned to the cages to find that their bald mice had miraculously grown their hair back, the scientists at UCLA had no intention of curing baldness. Originally, theirs was in fact a study aimed at reducing the harmful affects of chronic stress. The unanticipated side effect of their treatment could prove a boon to balding men and women everywhere, not to mention to the drug company that delivers the cure to them."
Well, I got a problem. I have hair on my palms and no idea what to do about it. And I'm open to suggestions. Anyone?
PETA will have a field day with this one, what with causing artificial stress in the mice to the point where they start losing hair? Think of their self esteem, think of premature heart attacks and strokes...
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
This treatment works by restricting a hormone that helps regulate our stress levels. Isn't it maybe a bad idea to go fucking around with that just because we want a full head of hair?
Just a thought.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
The bad news it makes your dick shrink.
If you've never been modded as "flamebait" or "troll," you've never tried to argue a minority viewpoint here!
Now, who wants to bet that a major food company who also owns a razor manufacturing plant will by the rights to this drug, pay off the government and convince them to label it an herbal food supplement, rename it something that sounds like it will cure cancer, then put small amounts into the food stuff they see.
Of course I didn't read the article. But hey, I've seen less believable conspiracies based on less facts flourish so don't blame me for trying my own 100 mile per gallon carburetor.
But not if this cure is going to cost an arm and a leg. I wonder if many health insurance plans would cover it.
vos nescitis quicquam, nec cogitatis quia expedit nobis ut unus moriatur homo pro populo et non tota gens pereat.
Just to poke my anti-socialist friends with a stick, I find it interesting that a publicly funded institute happened apon this discovery and not a private corporation.
Then again, if it is a "cure" then there is no capitalist drive for it to see the light of day when "treatments" that require continual purchase are available.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Three months later they returned to the cages
Misleading title. Should be "Scientists accidentally discover a way around that pesky eating requirement."
...there will be a simple, over-the-counter cure for baldness.
And then, on the following day, a drunk college student will pass out and have the formula smeared all over his face by his almost equally drunk 'friends'
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
screw this shit, I want my boosterspice!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Sudden loss of blood, rare forms of cancer, suicidal thoughts, blindness, impotence, and increased bodily hair growth.
Darwin may not favour vanity after all.
There's an ad for a psoriasis drug on TV right now that includes cancer as a side effect. Who has psoriasis sooo bad that increased risk of cancer is worth a reduction in psoriasis?
Playing devils advocate, public funded research could be consider an integral part of a capitalist society, and something capitalists support?
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
> Just to poke my anti-socialist friends with a stick, I find it interesting that a publicly funded institute happened apon this discovery and not a private corporation.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
I am one of them. I love being bald. It's part of me. Nobody every mistook a bald man for a woman. Plenty of women love bald men too, because it's caused by an excess of testosterone.
Seriously - any bald men who aren't happy being bald need to just a) grow a pair and get over it, b) be grateful with what they've got left, c) stop thinking about themselves all the time.
There are some problems:
Mice are covered with hair. I envision getting an injection and suddenly sprouting hair ... freaking everywhere. Also what happens if my eyebrows and nose hair are out of control already, and now I turbocharge them? And my back hair that already keeps me warm in the winter?
This is reported on a website that also reports the following "NEW" stories:
1) Scare story about web traffic monitoring (around since the 90s)
2) designer babies are coming (since the 40s or so, at least since the 80s, I've seen the discover magazines to prove it)
3) multi-axis CNC milling machines exist and are shiny (uh, since the 60s)
4) automation might lead to economic problems (since the 00s, 1900s I mean)
5) nanotech techniques exist to engrave things (since the 90s)
So I'm just askin', and its a fair question, is this breathless report about that newly invented drug .. Minoxidil / Rogaine? Could the site really be so out of touch to report something that old as new? Or is it kind of a campy humor site, kinda like the onion?
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Man! Maybe now we'll find out what color Bruce Willis' hair is.
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/stress-and-hair-loss/AN01442
Blah, blah, blah, every day another miracle cure. I'm not sure I want my hair back, I has unruly hair anyway.
Now we just need something to make our dicks long and hard. Then the cycle of Idiocracy will have completed.
Just to poke my anti-socialist friends with a stick, I find it interesting that a publicly funded institute happened apon this discovery and not a private corporation.
Right because of course, nobody will ever give money away in a completely free market. These are the same stupid arguments made time and time again, "unless we take money by force, nobody will help the poor" or "unless we take money by force, nobody will donate to public research". That is idiotic. The very existence of laws aimed to help the poor or support public research is evidence that most people do want to support those things! If you disagree then you think that most people don't want to help the poor but most people do want to vote for laws that will make them help the poor at gunpoint. Seriously, please think before you speak.
.. I can't wait to be balled.
The real breakthrough for pharmaceutical corporations will be when they devise a way for all beneficial effects of the treatment to disappear the moment you stop purchasing.... *ahem* taking the prescribed dosage.
The doc in the story is not only Director of the UCLA Hair Lab, she's also a client.
The proper word is 'serendipitous'... as in, "Serendipitous find may lead to a cure for boldness"
Lots of funny/stupid comments on here... but as someone thats losing his hair let me be the first to say "WOOOOOOOTTTTT!!!!!!!!"
No drug company will provide a cure unless they're forced to, there is far more profit in providing temporary relief from the symptoms so that the patient has to keep buying your drugs indefinitely.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
This potential baldness cure is right up there with the attempt to control blood pressure and the subsequent discovery of VIAGRA. Let's cure a deadly disease turns into let's make Meeellions!!
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
you do realize that your capitalist private free market stores also rely on the principle of being able to use force, right?
What, do you think the police use hugs and kindness to stop theft??
My thick strong black hairs were the only thing I had over my relativity wealthier friends.
Chronic stress grows hair for mice. For men they tear their hair out in tufts and become bald. That shows when you are the masters of the universe you control everything for your personal benefit.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
...wants to know where he can buy this miracle product! He'll take five dousin!
"I'm taking this loop off." - Jack O'Neill
m only 27 and i already have a bad case of male patern baldnes.
On top of my head i have only like 10 hairs the sqr cm,
add to that that im blond, and people think im completely bald on the top off my head.
Strangely the hair on my sides is , smooth and delicate.
When i was little, people always padded my head "Oh you have got such wonderfull hair."(Person my strokes head)*feals good man*
Thats probably why i got male pattern baldness.
Now, if i dont cut my Hair realy short,
i look like Phill Collins from the 80ies.
Insert sufficiently witty sig here.
Or perhaps "capitalist societies" and "socialist societies" don't exist outside of textbooks, because real societies always contain some degree of each?
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
Kirk got a hairpiece stapled to his scalp... and he had no problems getting women.
Picard was proud to be bald... and didn't seem to have problem getting women.
Sisko shaved his head! He was married twice!
This is not news for nerds. If nerds know anything, it's not what's on top of their head, but what's in the captain's chair that counts.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
Playing devils advocate, public funded research could be consider an integral part of a capitalist society, and something capitalists support?
In the fine print of its employment contract, the word "capitalism" is required to scream loudly and faint when used in the same sentence as either "public" or "society".
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
There's nothing about this that indicates it could not have been achieved with private funds. Besides, the objective was to reduce stress, which is a lot more in the interest of the general welfare than most of what is publicly funded right now. It's also not a cure; its effects last for four months after the last dose, which is just a lot better than the existing treatments.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
This is a link to the same research with pictures that address your concerns.
So can it have a cure?
Animal body hair human head hair. Animal body hair is analogous to human body hair, not human head hair. As we all know, when human males age, head hair tends to go, but body hair tends to sprout, especially out of the most repulsive places possible, such as the ears and the nose. There may be some kind of conservation of hair principle here. The obvious Darwinian explanation would be to prevent older men from breeding, although I'm not sure why.
On the whole, reptiles seems rather more sensible.
Yes - they treated mice genetically engineered to overexpress a hormone with an antagonist to the hormone. ...and then...they see effects of the hormone expression are suppressed. SHOCKER (sarcasm).
Unless you are a human genetically engineered to overexpress CRF, your bald head will not likely benefit from this work.
. . . enlargement pills that work.
Not that I would need or want any . . .
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
Yes... Viagra
Viagra was discovered in much the same way... And where would we be today if did not have our Viagra spam messages?
According to:
http://www.suite101.com/content/the-discovery-of-viagra-a27733
Excerpt:
In the late 1980s, a Pfizer research group were looking for a compound which would treat hypertension. They were working on a method to enhance the activity of a compound called "atrial natriuretic peptide" (ANP). This compound was a natural diuretic, causing the kidneys to produce more urine, but it also relaxed blood vessel walls. So a drug which enhanced this activity would reduce high blood pressure.
For several different reasons, the compound was almost binned, but one side comment in some of the trials was that after four or five days of taking the drug, penile erections were observed. This attracted the attention of some of the Pfizer scientists who realized that the inhibition of the activity of PDE-5 was overcoming a proposed cause of erectile dysfunction.
PETA will have a field day with this one, what with causing artificial stress in the mice to the point where they start losing hair? Think of their self esteem, think of premature heart attacks and strokes...
The trauma to female mice .. when they see these bald mice returning to the general population with great big pompadours and new-found confidence, "Hey, Baby, come over to my corner of the cage tonight and we'll split some cheese."
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
So I go from the light gray text on gray background at Slashdot to the mouse article which is another site with light gray text. My eyes are not happy and now I can't tell if I have hair or not!
Sorry, but gray text on gray background is making my eyes bleed.
The current anti-male-pattern-baldness products interfere with the production or activity of 5-alpha-reductase to reduce the amount of testosterone converted into dihydrotestosterone. They are usually topical ointments that only affect hair follicles in the area of application. They do not promote hair growth, they merely disrupt the balding process. Since 5-alpha-reductase is localized in the scalp and the prostate, the application of 5-alpha-reductase inhibitors at other locations is pointless.
Why is it that when you believe something it's an opinion, but when I believe something it's a manifesto?
This is barely a discovery. The researchers have apparently found a temporary cure for hair loss in mice that were genetically modified to secrete abnormally high levels of corticotropin-releasing factor. It is a big leap to go from there to a cure for baldness in humans.
I predict this will be massively funded and become a major hit among the gloriously over paid. Elsewhere people die from measles and AIDS everyday because they can't cough up enough green.
Human stress response evolved in a very different environment; there's a reasonable argument to be made that it isn't just useless but harmful these days. This may give you back your hair and make you healthier. We won't know till we try.
I have a better idea, let's turn anything into a political discussion for no reason!
Oh wait, that's right, we only say that when it's not a socialist who's turning something political.
Are you a guy or a girl?
I believe baldness has already been cured with this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake_oil
My marketing research also tells me that people who bough the cure for baldness may also be interesting in buying some prime buildable real-estate in Florida: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swampland_in_Florida
You can also earn millions working from home: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-level_marketing
Does it work on neckbeards? I don't have one and hearing that the other slashdotters do always makes me feel inadequate.
Good morning world!
DIMOXINIL!!!
Haven't you heard? This is a miracle breakthrough :)
Or perhaps "capitalist societies" and "socialist societies" don't exist outside of textbooks, because real societies always contain some degree of each?
And what is good, Phaedrus, And what is not good... Need we ask anyone to tell us these things?
That someone has a treatment seems like it would have little impact on someone else developing a cure.
Maybe it has more to do with medicine being complicated?
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
I don't, because if somebody just happens "apon" something, all it means is that they just happened "apon" it.
It's no more significant than a bum winning the lottery - or a millionaire winning it.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Once again, scientists have proven that there has never been a better time to be a mouse than now!
The supposed "cure for baldness" comes about every few years and grabs all these headlines, and then weirdly enough a few years later there's another headline about a new "cure for baldness."
Let's see, so far I've seen the discovery of :
Hair Implants
Rogaine
Propecia
now this?
Americans spend more money on hair research than the world spends on stopping malaria from killing millions a year.
I have a better idea, let's turn anything into a political discussion for no reason!
Oh wait, that's right, we only say that when it's not a socialist who's turning something political.
I notice that the American brand of leftism (which is a type of ends-justify-the-means authoritarianism the way they want to manifest it) is very, very good at presenting itself as a mainstream representation of what the plurality of people want. It likes to portrays itself as "the" default position, with every other idea being a minority who dissents. The fact that most mainstream media personnel are sympathetic to it (Fox being a notable exception) helps make this seem plausible without a doubt. The truth is that even if you consider the false dichotomy of "left vs. right" to be valid, it's more like 50/50 in terms of representation of the general population. Not that this does us any good, however. That neatly lends itself to divide-and-conquer strategies which are used because they work, while everyone seems to downplay the fact that individuality and personal liberty is on the decline.
Sometimes I can almost envy those who desire more government power, more micromanagement of daily life, more authoritarianism, more pointless overseas conflicts, and more double standards when it comes to corporate rights versus individual liberties. I don't really envy them and in fact I consider them to be something like Soviet-style brainwashed (inflict or allow a trauma and then implant a suggestion, find a crisis and rush to solve it, problem reaction solution, thesis antithesis synthesis for those who are learned) ... but at least they get to watch the news and feel like they are getting what they want. I really wonder what that feels like.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
I just have a really high widow's peak.
You do realise that there is no such thing as a left wing in the US dont you? You have right and far right wing!
It always amuses me that Americans call anyone in their country left wing!
However, with this article on PLOS and reading it now it to go beyond mice and go to study on other animals to check so this idea will work eventually on humans. My assumption it will take 3 years before human testing will occur and I will be the first be in line to do the test. It will be another 3 years before it may become available to general public.
The drug company in question ...
Oops. I was following some links on other drugs RELATED to the story and lost track of who discovered what. This one was UCLA, not the nice-priicing drug company.
My bad.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Can we do the opposite and inject something to stop the hair growth on my back? Looks like I have fucking angel wings folded back there.
Chewbacon
The Bible is like Wikipedia: written by a bunch of people and verifiable by questionable sources.
Minoxidil (aka Rogaine in some countries) was originally a medicine designed to treat high blood pressure. After giving it to various patients, it was discovered that it caused some of them to regrow hair. I'm not sure that it's used much these days to treat high blood pressure.
Of course capitalists would support it--so long as they can later claim to "own" the research in question. It's called internalizing profits and externalizing costs. This is something corporations attempt to engage in every day.
I've been going bald since age 19 or so, yet I don't feel "sick," or that I need a "cure," insensitive, hairy clod!
Maybe. But I'll bet there have been a few mysterious disappearances of the CRF-blockers. How many mouse doses does it take to treat a full professor?
The lucky grad students are the ones that don't get stuck with the night job in the Rat Room. No amount of washing will diminish the smell to the point of your being able to get a date. Your only hope is if the poor soul curating the dead shark collection is of the opposite sex.
I had English after Biology. Soon after entering the room our English instructor asked when we were going to be done dissecting those damn sharks. We told her we finished last week.
Fortunately this was high school so the male/female ratio in biology class was better than in college so there was some hope.
Yeah, much more reliable birth controll methods without hormones DO EXIST.
MARRIAGE!
It's interesting that the 5-alpha reductase types only seem to work for the crown of the head, and rarely work on the front. There seems to be (perhaps!) other things at play still undiscovered.
I have read that minoxidil does slightly more than just block 5-alpha reductase, but that how it actually does this is unknown.
Other products that block DHT are also used for treating acne and dandruff. Azelaic acid for example treats acne and lightens skin, and is recently often combined with Minox. Unfortunately, buying a cream of Azelaic acid alone may be expensive. Nizoral shampoo is for dandruff but is also used as a treatment, particularly to prevent what they call "shedding" which is often accompanied by a redness of the skin.
Spironolactone is taken internally to treat high blood pressure and acne, but is another treatment (may be applied externally in a cream).
Exactly how each of these works, which is the best, how to best absorb these chemicals in the skin. Well, this is left to the "snake oil" people it seems.
But it also seems to me that a simple shampoo and conditioner could be used by men of all ages to prevent hair loss, provided that the DHT blocker chemicals are absorbed well.
What about Odo?
I bet he could put them all to shame!
I will not sit idly by while my bald brethren, and sisters, and I are oppressed into thinking our baldness is some sort of problem. This is just another ploy by the hairy bastards into brainwashing us like some African Americans are brainwashed into thinking their skin color is wrong (ie. michael jackson).
Come my siblings, let us rise up against these fascist bastards, burn your wigs and hats, and show the world our true selves!
Bald is beautiful!
BALD POWER!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alopecia_universalis
How else are we going to have bad guys for comic books and movies? Could you picture Lex Luthor or Dr. Evil with hair? That would be a lite version of a quasi-evil bad guy. Baldness is badness, the entertainment industry cannot be wrong after all these years.
Well, I have long thick hair, and no one goes bald in my mom's & dad's family. (LOL @ my step brothers, their mom's side of the family has bald dudes).
Anyways, if any of you chicks are worried about having kids with the balding gene, worry no longer!
I got the solution you need.
All natural.
Only works at conception, does not guarantee a male child.
Be seeing you...
Too bad there is only one pharmaceutical company, if only there were more, one of the ones which didn't have a patent in the continual treatment would benefit from developing a cure.
Hair is for women!
Geek runner, motorcyclist and professional know-it-all
Any truth in the story that peopel can go totally bald over-night through stress?
About 10% of the people treated will turn into Reavers.
Ummm, those mice are growing hair _on_their_backs_. Don't think I need any help with that.
I'm bald, been bald for years, could care less. I actually enjoy wiping my head with a towel and not having to comb my hair, or rolling out of bed and no bed head. Baldness has it's benefits.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
Science is full of stories in which great discoveries are made by accident: The "discovery" of aspartame by researcher at Searle....
OK, you're lying and you know it. Since you cannot contribute an X chromosome to a son you cannot guarantee non-bald sons.
Assuming simple dominance you can guarantee that none of your daughters will experience gene-related baldness, and that your daughters' sons will have reduced likelihood of balding by up to 50% (actual percentages may vary, statistically significant* family sizes required to see best results).
Women, don't buy this man's snake oil! (cue "that's what they're calling it these days" jokes)
PS - Nyder, I apologize if you're a woman (I hear Slashdot has a few of those these days). If your father, maternal grandfather, and your mother's brothers all have good hair (especially if your mother had a lot of brothers) then you certainly can guarantee non-bald offspring. Just be careful with your wording, you're coming across as offering surrogacy services.
* +/-25% error is typical for groups of 15 children
>the scientists at UCLA had no intention of curing baldness. Originally, theirs was in fact a study aimed at reducing the harmful affects of chronic stress.
I guess maybe this proves that it is related, stress makes men go bald, maybe because of the augmented neurons firing when they deal with a stressful situation....
You make one good point about American Leftism being very, very good at misrepresenting itself. But it's brilliant, because it's self-fulfilling. Take over America's institutions of information dissemination -- education and the media -- and talk and act like the Leftist ways of seeing things are the default as you say, and hence the burden is on dissenters to demonstrate why a given alternative way of thinking should even be entertained. A decade here and a decade there of that and pretty soon it adds up.
So where your comment fails to be convincing is in your thinking that the divide is (or even can) still remain at 50/50, under this subtle onslaught.
We are being moved beyond the values of individuality and personal liberty, to a "larger morality", Progressives might say. In your "false dichotomy" of Left vs. Right, the Left is winning your war-that-doesn't-exist, handily, because they've been acting like they've already won.
Attention zealots and haters: 00100 00100
What will that say about me? I mean other than not being able to join the class action law suit in 20 years because the drug makes your testicles fall off.
I think that's actually part of the mindfuck. I disagree with the whole notion, really. As a thinking man the burden, if you want to call it that, is on me as an individual to familiarize myself with several different, incompatible philosophies before I can begin to consider myself qualified to choose one in which to believe. I definitely don't need someone to sell it to me and in fact I am suspicious of people who feel a need to do that.
One of the biggest parts of the problem is that there are so many passive, intellectually lazy people whose decision-making is altered by the group that has the most prominence and visibility. They will not leave no stone unturned in their search for truth. They will just assume that whatever looks the most widespread and successful must have inherent merit. Some of that is from being passive and lazy, while some of that comes from the need cowardly people have to derive a (false) sense of security from membership in a large group of like-minded people. Being a genuine individual is not for the faint of heart.
The hard thing to accept is that a lot of people who are phony don't know they are phony. In fact they would likely have some kind of mental breakdown if it were suddenly and undeniably revealed to them. When a person identifies that strongly with an external thing that is not really part of them at all, losing that thing feels to them like a sort of death. That's why so many people will perform all sorts of mental gymnastics and engage in all kinds of irrational behaviors just to avoid seeing simple facts.
I'd conjecture that it's because those who dissent are in a unique position to see the falsehood of what the Left is doing and therefore cannot be convinced by their methods. It just tends to be more of a "grassroots" or individualistic sort of dissent. Those who don't buy into the whole "left vs. right" bullshit have no major organization or political force or media presence to represent them. The bad thing is that they are severely marginalized no matter what their numbers. The good thing about this is that their numbers are quite a bit larger than it would appear.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein