Of lice and men: An itchy history

[Moontanman]

Of lice and men: An itchy history

 

By Emily Willingham

 

Ponder the louse. Consider its plural, lice. Try now not to scratch the multiple itches that have just populated your head at the very thought of these near-microscopic insects crawling around in that forest of hair follicles, laying eggs, sucking blood, and generally creeping you out.

 

The thing is, your head may not be the likeliest place to feel the itch. After all, we’re home not only to the louse, but to lice, plural. As in two genera of lice, and three different kinds. One of those, the pubic louse, appears to trace back to contact between the Homo lineage and the gorilla, but more on that in a bit.

 

http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=of-lice-and-men-an-itchy-history-2011-02-14&WT.mc_id=SA_CAT_EVO_20110214

[John Cuthber]

Never having had lice I don't associate the term with itching so I don't need to "try now not to scratch the multiple itches that have just populated your head ".

 

Are you trying to tell us something?

[ydoaPs]

Never having had lice I don't associate the term with itching so I don't need to "try now not to scratch the multiple itches that have just populated your head ".

 

Are you trying to tell us something?

When I was a youngling, we had routine lice exams at school. Whenever the school nurse would come in and announce the check, almost everyone(regardless of whether or not they had ever actually had lice) suffered from the phantom itch. It's odd that you wouldn't associate it with itching; did you also not know anyone who had had lice?

[PhDwannabe]

I'll come out and say that I've never had lice, never known anyone with lice, and have never been checked for them to my recollection. The word creates no psychogenic pruritus or other parasthesia in me.

 

I did, however, live in something of a substandard apartment building a few years ago at the start of grad school. Say "bedbug," and watch me squirm.

[Moontanman]

Never having had lice I don't associate the term with itching so I don't need to "try now not to scratch the multiple itches that have just populated your head ".

 

Are you trying to tell us something?

 

 

I thought the Human, Gorilla crab lice connection was interesting... on Valentines Day

[KennyC]

There was a segment on Nova Science Now about lice --- in particularly the differences in pubic lice and head lice and how that genetic division pinpoints when we evolutionarily lost our fur.

 

See here: http://video.pbs.org/video/1790635347/