Scientists Find A DNA Change That Accounts For White Skin

Washington Post ^ | December 16, 2005 | Rick Weiss

[RWR8189]

Scientists said yesterday that they have discovered a tiny genetic mutation that largely explains the first appearance of white skin in humans tens of thousands of years ago, a finding that helps solve one of biology's most enduring mysteries and illuminates one of humanity's greatest sources of strife.

The work suggests that the skin-whitening mutation occurred by chance in a single individual after the first human exodus from Africa, when all people were brown-skinned. That person's offspring apparently thrived as humans moved northward into what is now Europe, helping to give rise to the lightest of the world's races.

Leaders of the study, at Penn State University, warned against interpreting the finding as a discovery of "the race gene." Race is a vaguely defined biological, social and political concept, they noted, and skin color is only part of what race is -- and is not.

In fact, several scientists said, the new work shows just how small a biological difference is reflected by skin color. The newly found mutation involves a change of just one letter of DNA code out of the 3.1 billion letters in the human genome -- the complete instructions for making a human being.

"It's a major finding in a very sensitive area," said Stephen Oppenheimer, an expert in anthropological genetics at Oxford University, who was not involved in the work. "Almost all the differences used to differentiate populations from around the world really are skin deep."

[Gone GF]

"You know how pictures fade with age."

Thanks for explaining.

[television is just wrong]

there are more differences than skin color. Physical characteristics, and suceptibility to certain diseases as well.

[trisham]

Researchers at the John Radcliffe Institute of Molecular Medicine in Oxford say that the so-called “ginger gene” which gives people red hair, fair skin and freckles could be up to 100,000 years old. They claim that their discovery points to the gene having originated in Neanderthal man

*****************

My husband and I are Neanderthals? Who'd a thunk it? :)

[lawgirl]

Aha!! I was wondering how far I'd have to scroll before I saw Jacko LOL! Thanks for not disappointing!

[curiosity]

Interesting article, but it's rather dismaying to see all these scientists spouting, without any scientific basis, leftist dogma about racial differences.

[TheCrusader]

"Mutation is what allows evolution to proceed. Most mutations are undesirable, but they also allow species adaptation to changed conditions."

Adaptation isn't evolution.

[Coyoteman]

Adaptation isn't evolution.

What is it then?

[SunkenCiv]

It's a big boat, climb aboard! ;')

The Neandertal Enigma
by James Shreeve

Frayer's own reading of the record reveals a number of overlooked traits that clearly and specifically link the Neandertals to the Cro-Magnons. One such trait is the shape of the opening of the nerve canal in the lower jaw, a spot where dentists often give a pain-blocking injection. In many Neandertal, the upper portion of the opening is covered by a broad bony ridge, a curious feature also carried by a significant number of Cro-Magnons. But none of the alleged 'ancestors of us all' fossils from Africa have it, and it is extremely rare in modern people outside Europe." [pp 126-127]

[trisham]

Interesting pictures here

[Quark2005]

Adaptation isn't evolution.

Fair enough. Humans and apes adapted from a common ancestor, then.

[TheCrusader]

"Fair enough. Humans and apes adapted from a common ancestor, then."

Yes, Adam.

[steve-b]

So, they traced the work of that evil scientist "Yakob" that Calypso Louie is forever babbling about?

[steve-b]

Sounds like evolution to me. Does this mean that white people are more evolved than all the other races, or are we all just mutants?

Reminds me of a bit from an old That Was The Week That Was compilation. Among a set of parallel sound bites demonstrating that loonie extremists on opposite sides are more similar to each other than either of them is to normal people:

Ku Klux Klan Speaker: The white man is two hundred thousand years more evolved than the black man!
Black Radical Speaker: The black man was the first man!

[Young Werther]

What a LOAD!

In my whole life I have met only WHITE

person.

He was albino and lived at night since like vampires, (maybe that's how that legend began), he could not tolerate the sun on his skin.

In my travels I've come to the conclusion that skin coloration is an environmental, not mental, accomodation.

My biology teacher taught us that the proof of biological kinship was not some facafta skin gene but the ability to reproduce! Eskimos can begat Oriental children, Eytalians can begat Sengalese children and Demoncraps can begat Idiots!

Get It? Got It! Good!

[Seven Minute Maniac]

thats why the dominant trait is virtually non existant, its the same as when 2 blue eyed people have kids, all of their kids have blue eyes.

[Dan Evans]

A major media outlet has just announced that white skin is the problem.

I wonder what causes all that strife in Africa?

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks, there's also a FR topic on that, somewhere around here...

[Lazamataz]

Michael Jackson just signed up as a test subject.

I hate you because you said it first.

[Dan Evans]

I guess blue eyes, blonde hair, bone structure, brain size are all part of this mutation as well.

The change in skin color came first (whether it was white to black or black to white). And, after that, sexual selection isolated the groups. Then the other traits developed to create the races.

[ZULU]

"As a blonde, blue-eyed, light-skinned girl, I always wondered what the hell I was selected for for living on this planet."

How about a date?

Seriously, perhaps there is more than the vitamin D and novelty issue.

I think Homo sapiens is a killer by nature and in snow covered northern Europe, a white skin stands out less than a darker skin. Some early cro-magnon with a club would have a harder time finding a white slinned target to brain than a darker skinned target.

And vice-versa in a tropical jungle.