[muawiyah]

No, the melanin in the iris has its own genetic control. You have something like 4 genes out there drifting about. One provides melanin to the front and backside of the iris to give you brown or black/brown eyes.

One specifies melanin to the front, and that gives you hazel or green eyes. Another puts it on the back and that gives you gray eyes.

If you have no melanin on either side, you get blue eyes.

Although there's some logic to the brown, hazel and gray eyes having certain advantages under certain standard light conditions, there's really no logic to the blue eyes since the absence of melanin in the iris defeats one of the primary purposes of the iris, namely to protect the retina from too much light.

[Coyoteman]

Thanks. Interesting information. Things have improved a bit since my Human Races classes.

But it still looks like dark skin does have a huge correlation with brown eyes?

Any links for further study?

[Rushmore Rocks]

You seem very knowledgeable about many things.

I travel alot and something that has puzzled me is eggs. The nearer the equator, the darker the yolks. In Brazil, the yolks of eggs are deep orange. In Canada, a very pale yellow. The yokes in Texas are are a deeper yellow than those produced here in the Dakotas.

I know this is a rather silly and unrelated question, but I am curious.

Just a random thought from this very cluttered blonde mind.

[CobaltBlue]

My husband has grey eyes, and my mother green eyes, so it's not surprising that, while I have brown eyes, my son has light eyes.

What is surprising is that they're blue. Nobody can remember a blue eyed child in the family -- obviously something to do with having a double recessive gene.

Blondness also runs in both families, but the type of blondness where the young children are tow-headed but darken as they get older.

Sometimes randomness is just randomness.