Word: haire
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...HAIR...
TODAY: Transplants, hair plugs and scalp grafts...
...places like M.I.T., Princeton University and Carnegie Mellon, who are already redefining the meaning of the word miniature. The prefix nano- refers to a billionth part of a unit--the size range these visionaries are talking about. Already, nanotechnologists have built gears and rotors far thinner than a human hair and tiny molecular "motors" only 50 atoms long...
Dermatologists have long known that inactive hair follicles aren't dead; they're just catatonic. Drugs like Rogaine can rouse some of them to boost hairiness by a few percentage points. But true hair regrowth has so far eluded the experts...
...experiment at Cornell's Weill Medical College, though, may hint at a real baldness cure. The key is a gene known as SHH. In embryos SHH controls brain development, but in mature animals--including humans--it governs natural on-off cycles of hair growth. And sure enough, when scientists inserted SHH into mouse hair follicles (using a common cold virus as their splicing tool), the dozing follicles woke up and performed...