Posted on 05/24/2005 2:21:35 PM PDT by pissant
She was just walking down the street with her sister, in her old neighborhood, when an elderly woman stopped her car in front of her and called out, "I love your hair! It's so beautiful!"
Caitlin Tydings was about 8 then, and caught off guard. Now a high-school senior, she has since grown accustomed to strangers commenting on her strawberry-blond locks.
If predictions by the Oxford Hair Foundation come to pass, the number of natural redheads everywhere will continue to dwindle until there are none left by the year 2100.
The reason, according to scientists at the independent institute in England, which studies all sorts of hair problems, is that just 4 percent of the world's population carries the red-hair gene. The gene is recessive and therefore diluted when carriers produce children with people who have the dominant brown-hair gene.
Dr. John Gray's explanation of his foundation's findings: "The way things are going, red hair will either be extremely rare or extinct by the end of the century."
Red hair certainly has made the endangered list. But with 4 percent of 6.4 billion people carrying the gene, says University of Rochester Medical Center's David Pearce, it is too large a figure to be wiped out completely in the next 95 years.
"I think someone may want to check their calculator," he says. The red-hair gene "will dilute out and become rare, but there are a variety of other factors that can change hair color that are not really understood well right now."
The gene responsible for red hair was only discovered in the late 1990s. People have a good chance of being born with red hair if they have a mutation of that gene.
Red hair is found in all ethnic backgrounds but is most commonly
(Excerpt) Read more at seattletimes.nwsource.com ...
American Pie was made into a TV show? Is Don McClean collecting royalties?
I like auburn, but not as much as the real red/orange stuff. ;o)
I have Charlie's Angels. My oldest has brown hair, middle girl has blonde hair, and the youngest has red hair.
So?
It was a response to an earlier post by you. Get with the program.
milkman, mailman, mechanic?
I am not freeping in a teddy. How silly.
My son has red hair, neither my husband or I have red, but my husbands grandmother had red. My daughter has very very dark brown. My son's son, has blond hair. A few people have said they see red in it, but I think it's wishful thinking.
Becky
One time, at band camp . . .
Redhead Ping
Coyote.
I am beyond the program.
I am tremendously genetically diverse. It's one of my better qualities.
Alyson Hannigan - one of my favorite redheads - very attractive, and a darn good actress
had to chew yer arm off?
Not me, but my dates did.
I did notice quite a few single armed men when I was in Kansas.
Hearing "Will you be my Dixie Chicken....."
Well, I dated quite a few.
I was a fake redhead for 20 years. Since my dad was a redhead, it wasn't genetically impossible for me to be one so most people thought I was for real. Strangers would stop me to comment on my beautiful "natural" red hair. Men would do the strangest things to get my attention. I loved it. I got tired of the upkeep a couple years ago and am now a nice boring brown/gray. But those were great years. Redheads have more fun.
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