Name:________________________________________________ Date:______________________
Hair Chapter Questions
Directions: use the textbook to help you answer the following questions.
1. Is hair considered Class evidence, Individual evidence or both? Explain.
2. What is the main function of hair?
3. Label the parts of a hair (hair shaft, dermis, follicle, epidermis)
4. What is the protein found inside the hair shaft? What does it do for
hair?
5. What are the three parts that make up hair?
6. What is the scale pattern found on human hair?
7. Which way do the scales of the hair always point towards – proximal
or distal end?
8. Based on question #7 how can this help with determining drug history
of a suspect or victim?
9. What pigment does the cortex hold and how is it different from person
to person?
10.
Why should 50 hairs be collected from one suspects head?
11.
How should hairs be examined to determine what body part they
are from?
12.
What is the active growing stage of hair called?
13.
Give 2 ways you can determine if a hair is human or animal.
14.
Calculate the medullary index of a hair whose diameter is 110
microns wide and whose medulla measures 58 microns.
15.
Is the hair, calculate in #14, human or animal?
16.
What are two methods to collect hair evidence?
17.
List 2 types of microscopes that you would use to examine hair
and 2 hair characteristics that you would examine using these
microscopes?
18.
How is Neutron activation analysis used to examine hair?
19.
What specific part of the hair can be analyzed for nuclear DNA?
20.
Why would we still do a microscopic test of hair if we have DNA?