<H4>Wash your hair, help the environment</H4>

Dandruff may have an effect on climate change, according to German researchers.

Their painstaking, 15-year measurements turned up a collection of human and animal skin particles, fur, fragments of plants, pollen, spores, bacteria, algae, fungi, and viruses.

They are the right size and shape to act as nuclei for ice crystals, which in turn form clouds and rain, and thus could potentially affect weather and climate, they report in (the April 1) issue of the journal Science.

While he is not claiming that dandruff affects global warming, (Ruprecht) Jaenicke said he also ran tests that showed his particles could easily affect cloud formation.

“To form clouds you need water and particles,” he said. “Each particle is a nucleus. To form rain you need certain ice nuclei which transform a droplet into an ice crystal.” These then collide and form rain droplets.

Jaenicke’s team was unable to say how much of this biological dust is pollen and how much is actually dandruff.

But, it might be time to break out the Selsun Blue or Head and Shoulders. All laughing aside, pollen, fur and dander, and perhaps those itchy white flakes, could have serious meteorological effects.

Overall this dust could make up 25 percent of so-called aerosols — particles in the atmosphere that affect pollution, cloud formation and which can both reflect and absorb radiation from the sun, said atmospheric scientist Jaenicke of the University of Mainz.

This is significant because atmospheric and climate scientists admit that as much as 40 percent of all aerosols are unidentified, and climate models do not fully take into account the effects of aerosols, Jaenicke said.

So, you know what to do — lather, rinse and repeat.