Are Millennials Really Growing Horns From Using Their Phones?
A paleoanthropologist warns readers to beware of stories that seem too weird to be real
A recent Washington Post headline has people up in arms: “Horns are growing on young people’s skulls. Phone use is to blame, research suggests.” As a professional paleoanthropologist, I’m here to throw some cold water on that claim. The research doesn’t back it up.
The story is about a well-known anatomical feature called the external occipital protuberance. This common trait can often be felt as a bump on the back of the skull, at the middle, just above where the neck muscles attach. Men have it more often than women, so much so that this is one of several traits that help forensic scientists establish whether a skeleton belonged to a male or female individual.
What does this have to do with “horns”? Horns are made of keratin, the same stuff as fingernails. There actually are conditions called keratoses in which fibrous growths of keratin emerge from the skin, including on the face and head. But this story isn’t about horns at all. Instead, the story is about a much more common…
