What is it about?
Removing louse eggs and nits from hair is a difficult and tedious process becasue the glue-like substance that holds the eggshells in place grips the hair firmly making it difficult to slide them off the hair. This is a description of laboratory investigations of the effect of ultrasound applied through a nit comb to louse eggs with and without soaking them in various fluids that are supposed to be lubricants - i.e. are supposed to make them slide more easily. Most products improved their "slip" under the stimulus of ultrasound and even dry hair responded to teh vibration. Some fluids, like conditioning rinses became much more efficient but essential oil based products made the glue grip more.
Featured Image
Why is it important?
Many people want to make the task of nit removal easier, especially in places where "no nit" policies are enforced. Technology like this could help, provided it can be made into an effective product.
Perspectives
Many products make claims to help people remove the nits from children's hair but almost none of them ahve any real scientific data to back them up. In fact quite a lot of products are cons but neither the consumers nor the regulators have enough information to sort out which ones. Studies like this one don't give the solution but they go a little towards helping make reality clearer.
Ian F Burgess
Insect Research & Development Limited
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: A Novel Nit Comb Concept Using Ultrasound Actuation: Preclinical Evaluation, Journal of Medical Entomology, November 2015, Oxford University Press (OUP),
DOI: 10.1093/jme/tjv176.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
