Hair-Growing Rock Found in China

When I first read about this and saw the picture of the rock, I thought it was an April Fool's prank. However, when I checked the date, it said that the news was released on March 16, 2007. Close, but a bit too early for April's Fool.

An unusual rock named a "hair-growing rock" was found on a beach in Taiwan. The medium-sized rounded rock resembling a cobblestone has hair on top - or something that looks very much like gray human hair - and the hair keeps growing, according to the news release by The Epoch Times.

As you can see on the photo, the "hair" strands are different in size; the longest ones are around 6 inches long. Their appearance is eerily similar to the top of a human head, although the rock is not perfectly round - the "hair" is even parted in the middle, if you take a closer look! So what is this oddity? A hoax? An anomaly? Or is there a reasonable explanation?

Strangely, the news release offers no explanation whatsoever. No attempt seems to have been made to find out what exactly it is, no samples taken and analyzed. All we are told is that the hair is "almost identical to human hair," only coarser, and there is a scalp-like tissue under it, attaching it to the rock. I don't know about you, but to me, all this raises a bunch of questions. "Identical" in what? Texture, structure, genetics, or just in the way it looks and feels to the touch? And what is the scalp-like tissue? For a natural phenomena like this, I would expect some more research done than someone just looking at the stuff and touching it. The article also says that "as long as conditions are right, the hair on this rare rock will continue to grow." What conditions? And how do they know that? Apparently, some research has been done, so why not tell more to the public?

My online search brought no official answers to these questions. Speculations have been made on discussion boards regarding the rock; some dismiss it as a hoax, others suggest it might be a whip coral group, or a formation of minerals called halotrichite and pickeringite. I tend to think the latter might be the case, which is somewhat confirmed by the glass of water you see on the picture: humidity is required for the minerals to continue their "growth," so perhaps the water is there to provide it.

Whatever it is, the hair-growing rock is now on display at the Fashion Rock Café in Zhongguan Village, Beijing. Two other rocks like this are said to exist in the world, both of them kept in a museum in Taiwan. According to The Epoch Times, the rock's value is estimated to be around 1.3 million dollars.