Posted on 01/31/2008 11:03:17 PM PST by cate_wingnutx
If you've got blue eyes, shake the hand of the nearest person who shares your azure irises: He or she may be a distant cousin. Danish researchers have concluded that all blue-eyed people share a common ancestor, presumably someone who lived 6,000 to 10,000 years ago. "Originally, we all had brown eyes," Professor Hans Eiberg of the University of Copenhagen said in a press release. "But a genetic mutation affecting the OCA2 gene in our chromosomes resulted in the creation of a 'switch,' which literally 'turned off' the ability to produce brown eyes." That "switch" — a simple change from "A," or adenine, to "G," or guanine, in the DNA — actually sits next to the OCA2 gene, which regulates the pigmentation of our eyes, hair and skin, and hence has only a limiting effect on it. If the mutation had completely deactivated OCA2, all blue-eyed people would be albinos. Eiberg and his team analyzed 155 individuals in a large Danish family, plus several blue-eyed people born in Turkey and Jordan. All blue-eyed subjects had the mutation, and there was very little variation on the genes neighboring it on the chromosome, indicating that the mutation first arose relatively recently.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
|
|
|||
Gods |
Just adding to the catalog, not sending a general distribution. |
||
|
· Mirabilis · Texas AM Anthropology News · Yahoo Anthro & Archaeo · · History or Science & Nature Podcasts · Excerpt, or Link only? · cgk's list of ping lists · |
|||
Hi, my name is MotleyGirl70 and I’m your long lost cousin.
Well... I hate to break it to y’all... but you go back far enough and we’re ALL relatives.
Whether it was Adam and Eve or a flash of life in a pool of slime somewhere... we pretty much all started out in the same place.
Except of course for those of you for whom this is not your home planet. We know who you are.
Hey, cousin!
Hi Honey! Mama’s logged on!
BTW, Dracovsu is my son...welcome to FreeRepublic!
Here’s a very interesting blog entry from the Gene Expression website...
http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2007/11/blue-eyed-ice-queens-and-brown-eyed.php
(”Blue eyed ice queens and brown eyed tarts?” posted by Razib @ 11/19/2007)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
