Addendum* Lots of traffic to this post and lots of emailed questions. I’ve put up a website specifically for this project  at http://www.hairproject.wheatleyempire.com so check that out if you think you might be able to contribute some found hair to SCIENCE *end addendum

Help me Paleoposse, you’re my only hope.

I’m working on a project that will match changes in human hair chemistry to the region that the hair was grown in. I need to look at hair from lots of different regions in order to do this well. That’s where you come in.

If you want to help, it’s pretty easy…

1) Get a Ziplock bag (quart size or even smaller is fine).

2) Go to your local barbershop or hair salon.

3) Ask them if you can have some of the hair they swept up that day (tell them it’s for SCIENCE!).

4) Put the hair in the Ziplock bag (1/3 full is plenty).

5) Write down the date you did this and the address of the place you got the hair from.

6) Mail it to me…

Patrick Wheatley

Center for Isotope Geochemistry

Lawrence Berkeley National Lab

1 Cyclotron Rd. MS 70A-4418

Berkeley CA, 94720

6) Sit back and await your reward.

I’ll list you in the acknowledgements when I publish the work. I’ll also send you a Science… sort of prize or two (so make sure you give me your address when you send me the hair sample). If I get enough responses I’ll blog about some of the results before the paper comes out.

If you’ve got questions, email me patrick[at]sciencesortof.com

Thanks for being a soldier for Science… sort of,

Patrick