After years of doing it, Shatner won’t need to skin any more tribbles for that awesome rug of his, because science has found the cure for baldness.
It started at the Salk Institute, where researchers were trying to figure out what, exactly, stress does to your digestive system. To do that, they bred mice that had an excess of a hormone called CRF, corticotrophin-releasing factor. Among other things, too much of this makes the mice bald on their backs as they age, and also push it to buy sports cars and date coeds.
Then they injected the mice with a peptide they’d whipped up in the lab, astressin-B, and apparently left the lab for three months, presumably because their vacations all started at the same time. When they came back? No bald mice: they’d all regrown their hair.
They’re not sure if it’ll work on humans, but considering the terrifying side effects of other baldness drugs, anything’s worth a shot, we guess.
[ via the chromedomes at PopSci ]