If losing most body hair helped humans cool down, why did hair remain on the head, eyebrows and eyelashes?
Show answer & explanation
Answer: Those patches still solve local problems
Those patches still solve local problems ✓ — Correct! Hair loss was not a plan to make every patch of skin bare. Scalp hair shades the head from strong sun, while eyebrows and eyelashes steer sweat and dust away from the eyes. Evolution can reduce hair where it hurts cooling and keep it where the local benefit is still worth the cost.
Evolution had not had enough time — Wrong. Humans have been mostly bare-skinned for well over a million years, long enough for selection to remove the remaining hair if it only got in the way. It stayed because it still does a job where it is.
Any remaining hair is just genetic noise — Wrong. Scalp hair, eyebrows and eyelashes are not leftovers. Each sits where it solves a local problem, shade on the head, sweat and dust kept out of the eyes, so selection kept them while reducing hair elsewhere.
More Evolution & Genetics questions
- Which of the following best describes a common change in RNA transcript length with age?
- Why do different organs in mammals show different gene activity patterns related to longevity?
- What can researchers learn about people of the same age from separate RNA-based aging clocks that estimate age from inflammation-related and metabolism-related gene activity?
- If you sort the many gene-activity changes that come with age into groups that rise and fall together, what does that grouping reveal?
- Why might aging mouse, monkey, and human cells show similar changes in the RNA they produce across different tissues?
- Why does a platypus still count as a mammal when it lays eggs and has no nipples?