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 ...
My hair is dark reddish brown, which I used to accentuate with henna. Having dark red hair was cool, but now I make it kinda blond on top.
blather blather blather . . .my point is that I like red hair, but this is a VERY disappointing post from pissant. Far too tame.
THIS one will be!
great pics
A Seattle Hottie!
I have always been attracted to redheads. There’s something special about them. The world will be a drab place without redheads.
I have also been burned by every redhead I was with. I’ll never learn.
I'm left-handed a redhead. Thank goodness I'm not a stepchild, or I'd have three strikes against me!
I will need to capture a couple....for mating purposes!
Hopefully not a stepchild! ;o)
Lame Post?
I can't titilate you 24/7, chickee
I have two very good friends that are redheads...and one has three redheaded rugrats.
From time to time, I'm a redhead too.
I read somewhere when I was a kid that natural redheads are about 5% of the population. Looks to me like the percentage is holding.
Hot redheads and Guinness Stout!
You are forgiven!
Quack!
Is that why they call you the professor? Hell, you couldn't even get the crew of the darn island! ;o)
My husband's beard is red and brown, with patches of black and one patch of white. He calls himself a calico.
I disagree!
Post a pic!
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