Wow, what a horrible article. First off, the chemical is used as a substrate for growing "hair follicle germs", not as a direct treatment. If the hair follicle

Wow, what a horrible article. First off, the chemical is used as a substrate for growing "hair follicle germs", not as a direct treatment. If the hair follicle germs had been grown in glass Petri dishes, would the headline be "Chemical Used in Baby Food Jars May Cure Baldness"? No, of course not. (BTW, I suspect "hair follicle germs" is a bad translation from Japanese -- "stem cells" is probably nearer the mark). Secondly, this stuff is used for all sorts of purposes (see the Wikipedia article that someone else linked), so drawing a connection to McDonalds is...questionable. Ethanol is used as a disinfectant, and is also found in Jack Daniels, but you don't see articles like "Chemical Found in Jack Daniels may Prevent Infection, Study Says". It's atrociously bad science journalism, even by the lousy standards that exist in that field.