Researchers have produced vegetables from human hair

• Scientists at NTU grew crops from discarded clumps of hair.
• Hair served as the growth medium instead of soil.
• The research is crucial to a more sustainable form of urban farming.

In a lab at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore, scientists have been growing crops — leafy vegetables, micro greens, rocket leaves, and the Chinese cabbage bok choy — using discarded hair collected from salon floors.

Doesn't sound too appetizing, does it?

Allow us to explain. Researchers created the growth medium used in their urban farming —known as hydroponics substrates—using keratin extracted from the human hair.