Soon, a pill to straighten curly hair

Hair straighteners may soon be history, claim scientists who have discovered a "curly hair gene".

It is hoped the breakthrough could lead to a pill to make hair straighter or curlier, rendering the must-have beauty accessory redundant.

Researchers also believe that the discovery could make it possible to predict whether a baby will have straight or curly hair, reports The Daily Express.

At Australia's Queensland Institute of Medical Research, researchers identified the trichohyalin gene as mainly responsible for creating curls.

Curly-haired lead researcher professor Nick Martin said: "Potentially we can now develop new treatments to make hair curlier or straighter. Also, we could predict whether it was more probable that a baby would have curly or straight hair.

"We might be able to refine identikit pictures from DNA samples left at a crime scene to say whether the suspect had straight or curly hair."