Shiny Happy Horse Hair (and light microscopy)
Anyone got any leads on resources on the metallic/satin/sheen factor and associated microscopic findings, particularly in horses (ie, Akhal-Tekes) but not necessarily?
I found some images via Google, the best being an article from the Akhal-Teke Quarterly using scanning electron microscopy and has some lovely SEM images, but no light microscopy. And I don't know how good their science really is. The FBI has a great page on differentiating animal hairs from human hairs for forensic purposes, if anyone's intrigued.
Literature findings would be awesome. I'm trying to dig through databases but I never was any good at litsearches. I can get fulltext on my own if anybody happens to just know of a darn good journal article that's out there in the literosphere.
This is totally just-for-fun. I'm twiddling my thumbs ... and happen to be sharing a desk with some biological light microscopes of considerable power. I'm not big into microscopy, but I figured I may as well play with the things and look at something, and what do I always have in abundance? Horse hair! (And cat hair and dog hair). One of our horses, in particular, is always getting comments on her unusually glossy sheen on her coat. I've never seen an Akhal-Teke in person, but I'm told her coat is similar, so just for S&G I thought I'd see if there was actually any microstructure similarity after all.
Edit to add: OK, the tagging *might* be a stretch, but it was the closest. Also, there's a tag for urine? I had no idea.
I found some images via Google, the best being an article from the Akhal-Teke Quarterly using scanning electron microscopy and has some lovely SEM images, but no light microscopy. And I don't know how good their science really is. The FBI has a great page on differentiating animal hairs from human hairs for forensic purposes, if anyone's intrigued.
Literature findings would be awesome. I'm trying to dig through databases but I never was any good at litsearches. I can get fulltext on my own if anybody happens to just know of a darn good journal article that's out there in the literosphere.
This is totally just-for-fun. I'm twiddling my thumbs ... and happen to be sharing a desk with some biological light microscopes of considerable power. I'm not big into microscopy, but I figured I may as well play with the things and look at something, and what do I always have in abundance? Horse hair! (And cat hair and dog hair). One of our horses, in particular, is always getting comments on her unusually glossy sheen on her coat. I've never seen an Akhal-Teke in person, but I'm told her coat is similar, so just for S&G I thought I'd see if there was actually any microstructure similarity after all.
Edit to add: OK, the tagging *might* be a stretch, but it was the closest. Also, there's a tag for urine? I had no idea.