[qam1]

I was thinking more of sequences than pseudogene versus expressed gene... should've made that clearer... but your point still stands... however it would seem that you can't "wander" further away from one simple mutation (1 simple transposition, shift, etc.) to expressing that sequence again.

It would be interesting to figure out how far a gene could actually "wander" before the chances of it ever being able to be re-activated again are nil. Like the Vitamin C pseudo gene in people is probably gone for good while occasionally babies are born with tails so the tail pseudogene probably isn't that "Far Gone" and can still occasionally get activated. 

As for blonde hair, perhaps we just haven't bred apes enough to get a blonde ape?

The only primate I can think of that has blonde hair is the Japanese snow monkeys and maybe Baboons (though they look kind of grey). Well there is an interesting science experiment to see if there is a Blonde hair pseudogene in Chimpanzees and even in races that blonde hair is absent like blacks and orientals.

On a note of interest, for many mammals, it has been shown that if you breed the tamest of the tame, you will eventually get an animal with black-and-white fur. This came from an article posted on FR some time ago. Cats, mice, foxes... researchers (or breeders) took wild stock, and bred the tamest of the stock, and continuing doing so for successive generations until they eventually ended up with a tame black-and-white spotted mammal. Wonder how high up in the mammal heirarchy this domesticatic black-and-white fur gene exists?

Actually hair color changes might not have to do with tameness but disease. Domestication brings animals into more contact with each other that they wouldn't other wise experience in the wild which exposes them to more diseases and certain hair colors might offer more resistance to them. The black hair of cats for instance gives them resistance to feline HIV and I heard the same of white cats being more resistant to the feline flu. So a black and white combo might offer the most resistance and thus making the animal most likely to be able to survive domestication. It doesn't occur in the wild because both white and black would be easy to spot and the animal would either be quickly eaten or starve

Also researching the cats I found that black hair evolved independently in at least four different species. It was on the same gene that the black hair on those 4 different cats comes from but it was four different mutations on that gene. So I will have to look into it more because it seems like if it can happen in cats it can happen in humans (and other mammals) also. So hair color could also have evolved separately instead of gene skipping.  

[Nataku X]

Thanks for the very interesting and informative reply...

It would be interesting to figure out how far a gene could actually "wander" before the chances of it ever being able to be re-activated again are nil. Like the Vitamin C pseudo gene in people is probably gone for good while occasionally babies are born with tails so the tail pseudogene probably isn't that "Far Gone" and can still occasionally get activated.

Interesting point... I think that several genes are responsible for tails... bones, spinal cord, skin/fat... the latter being responsible for the fleshy tails occassonally born in humans... I've heard it suggested that some forms of spina bifida result from a screwed up tail mutation where the spinal cord grows but doesn't have the bones/skin/musculature growing out with it.

Thanks very much also for the article about the independent mutations of the same cat gene. :) You make a good argument for the black/white combo being advantageous to domestic animals. Again, thanks for the very informative and interesting reply!