Damn you, genetic variant on chromosome 20! A new SciShow video that explains why people go bald says the genetic variant makes men seven times more likely to lose their hair, but doesn't appear to affect women. Abnormalities in chromosome 20 have been linked to serious diseases, such as blood cancers. But in 2008, researchers found that regions on the chromosome appear to be associated with baldness. The video offers other fun tidbits about failing follicles, but may still leave sufferers at a loss. That's because science has yet to cure baldness, which narrator Hank Green calls "the holy grail of beauty." Statistics tell us that, at some point, we'll all have to deal with thinning or disappearing locks. Two-thirds of American men have "some degree of appreciable hair loss" by age 35, and 85 percent have "significantly thinning hair" by age 50, according to a consumer group called the American Hair Loss Association. Forty percent of women experience "visible hair loss" by age 40, the American Academy of Dermatology says. Source
