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 ...
Good!
lol
For your files.
But you watch. This thread is gonna die due to lack of interest.
Perhaps you should start running prospective threads by me.
Wow, that's rare!
Green eyed redheaded welsh girls are the most strikingly beautiful people on the planet.
Anyone who has seen one will never forget.
That's better, thank you.
Me too. Burned badly!
I know. I can't stand to look at Laura on That 70's Show anymore. Ugh.
My dad had red hair and was solidly freckled from the top of his head to the top of his feet...eyelids, lips, and I don't know where else...He had a great uncle that looked just like him...but neither I, nor my brother or my brother's kids have shown up a redhead yet...but they have kept the blue eyes...maybe there's hope.
Just be careful. There's some pretty crappy hair dyes out there!
I got me one of those. LOL.
My Grandfather, sister and son all redheads. My brother has Irish setter red and if I'm out in the sun my hair goes from dark brown to reddish undertones.
Since both my husband and I have dark hair we always got second looks when all three of us were out together.
When they asked as where Robin got his red hair, my husband would reply that ''the car mechanic has red hair and he has been pretty good about his rates since Robin was born.''
Once Robin was asked (age 7 or 8) and he said Gromers (the supermarket we were at)
Ouch. You & pissant married?
I feel yer pain
heheheheh. It is kind of funny - my oldest is red, his little brother is blonde, and my daughter is mutt.
Teeny's attention:
Serious Threads -- 5%
Funny Threads -- 20%
Sex Threads -- 75%
It often skips generations!
Not that I don't appreciate your effort.
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