Human Hair with Split Ends
This is a terminal segment of a Human Hair (not a nano-squid). This hair had been cut at one time and had grown out into a rounded termination. That requires a few weeks. The hair has been severely damaged by washing, which has removed the cuticle. In the absence of the cuticle and with the caustic action of the soap the individual elongated cells that make up the hair are no longer bound together and have split apart.
Definition/Function:
Mammalian hair is composed of a protein, keratin. It is the same protein that makes horn, fingernails, claws, skin epithelium, and dander. Mammalian hair consists of three distinct morphological units, the cuticle, the cortex and the medulla. The distinctive pattern shown by these units varies over the length of the hair in a way that can be very characteristic. The patterns exhibited by these units in any given hair are often sufficient to identify the genus, the species, or even the individual that the hair came from.
