Free Republic

That Flaming Hair Could Mean Flaming Pain - Study Mon Oct 14, 5:50 PM ET WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Redheads may actually have another trait that makes them stand out -- sensitivity to pain, specialists reported on Tuesday. People with natural red hair need about 20 percent more anesthesia than people with other hair colors, they told a meeting of anesthesiologists. The unexpected finding not only suggests that redheads are more sensitive to pain, but offers insights into how anesthesia works in people. "Red hair is the first visible human trait, or phenotype, that is linked to anesthetic requirement," Dr. Edwin...

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...

People with ginger locks are head and shoulders above blondes or brunettes when it comes to coping with pain, researchers claim. Scientists have found that the gene responsible for flame-coloured hair also produces a morphine-type substance that acts like an anaesthetic and reduces pain. When researchers at the Medical Research Council in London introduced the gene in mice, they found the rodents could withstand more pain than normal. "Seventy per cent of redheads are redheads because a particular gene doesn't work," Prof. Jeff Mogil of Montreal's McGill University, told CTV News. "This is a gene that would otherwise give you...

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A gene found in redheads and fair-skinned people may also play a role in the body's natural pain suppression system. But the gene, Mc1r, appears to impact pain suppression only in women, according to the study, published Monday in the advance online publication of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (news - web sites). The researchers found that redheaded women were able to tolerate more pain than other people when given an analgesic drug called pentazocine. All redheaded men, as well as men and women who did not have red hair, had similar-and...

Stoic Redheads By AMY SULLIVAN Published: December 11, 2005 Redheads have long been portrayed in literature and art as strong-willed and fiery. Now there may be a scientific explanation for these traits. The key, according to researchers at McGill University in Montreal, is a gene that is linked both to red hair coloring and to higher levels of pain tolerance. It has been known since the mid-1990's that mutations of the MC1R gene are responsible for hair color - and fair skin and freckles - in about 70 percent of redheads. But when Jeffrey S. Mogil and his colleagues at...

DEPRESSING news in the September edition of National Geographic: redheads are becoming rarer and could become extinct - some experts say the last redhead could be born by 2060. Others say the redhead gene can disappear for a generation or two in a family and reappear... ...the proportion of the world's population with natural red hair is down to 2per cent... On every level, that's surely a tragedy. Before we let this rare and precious species go, has anyone considered what it might be like to live in a world without redheaded women? ...Groucho Marx once admitted... "I don't know...

‘Red Festival’ In Udmurtia 19 November 2010, 07:50 Nadezhda Volokitina The Udmurts are the most red-haired Finno-Ugric people, the most red-haired nation in Russia, and as far as the rest of the world is concerned, they are inferior only to the Irish in this respect. The so-called ‘Red Festival’, which gathers a lot of people, takes place annually in the capital of Udmurtia, Izhevsk. There organized such contests and competitions as ‘Mother, Father and I are a Red Family’ (the most red-haired family contest), ‘Mischievous Gingers’ (the most red-haired child contest), as well as ‘red’ pet contests for cats, dogs,...

~~~snip~~~ hey did a DNA test on the Cherchen man (the 3800 year old 6'6 tall dark blonde mummy and the oldest mummy found), and the beauty of Loulan (the red hair mummy), and both of these mummies contained East Asian Mongoloid DNA. Even the Chinese scientist were astonished. The Mongoloid component of the Tocharians are not from Han Chinese or pre Han Chinese, but most likely from Altaic types of Mongoloids such as Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and Mongolians. This obviously indicates that the Tocharians were already mixed for quite a few generations, since they looked mostly Caucasian. Very interesting....

Ancient DNA retrieved from the bones of two Neanderthals suggests that at least some of them had red hair and pale skin, scientists report this week in the journal Science. The international team says that Neanderthals' pigmentation may even have been as varied as that of modern humans, and that at least 1 percent of Neanderthals were likely redheads. The scientists -- led by Holger Römpler of Harvard University and the University of Leipzig, Carles Lalueza-Fox of the University of Barcelona, and Michael Hofreiter of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig -- extracted, amplified, and sequenced a...

DNA reveals Neanderthal redheadsNeanderthals’ pigmentation possibly as varied as humans’, scientists say By Steve BradtWith Neanderthals’ surviving bones providing few clues, scientists have long sought to flesh out the appearance of this hominid species. Illustration created by Knut Finstermeier, Neanderthal reconstruction by the Reiss-Engelhorn-Museum Mannheim Ancient DNA retrieved from the bones of two Neanderthals suggests that at least some of them had red hair and pale skin, scientists report this week in the journal Science. The international team says that Neanderthals’ pigmentation may even have been as varied as that of modern humans, and that at least 1 percent of...

The gene known as MC1R suggests the Neanderthals had fair skin and even freckles like redheads. After analysing the fossil bones found in a cave in north-west Spain, the experts concluded they had human blood group "O" and were genetically more likely to be fair skinned, perhaps even with freckles, have red or ginger hair and could talk... The report, published in BMC Evolutionary Biology, concludes that: "These results suggest the genetic change responsible for the O blood group in humans predates the human and Neanderthal divergence" but came "after humans separated from their common ancestor ... chimpanzees." ...One gene...

Siberian Graveyard's Secrets YEKATERINBURG, Russia In a medieval Siberian graveyard a few miles south of the Arctic Circle, Russian scientists have unearthed mummies roughly 1,000 years old, clad in copper masks, hoops and plates - burial rites that archaeologists say they have never seen before. . Among 34 shallow graves were five mummies shrouded in copper and blankets of reindeer, beaver, wolverine or bear fur. Unlike the remains of Egyptian pharaohs, the scientists say, the Siberian bodies were mummified by accident. The cold, dry permafrost preserved the remains, and the copper may have helped prevent oxidation. . The discovery adds...

‘Tis a good day for the Irish -– and a really bad one for Basil Fawlty — thanks to my colleague Nicholas Wade’s article tracing the genetic heritage of the British Isles. I grew up listening to my Irish-American relatives bristle at the social pretensions of the Anglo-Saxons in England: “We were preserving civilization while they were painting themselves blue! Blue, I tell you!” Now we can point to research suggesting the Celts started civilization in those isles by introducing agriculture 6,000 years ago. We also have confirmation of our illustriously long lineages — next to us, the Angles and...

In a seemingly paradoxical study, US researchers found that redheads have a preternaturally high pain tolerance — wait for it — due to a mechanism that ups their susceptibility to sunburns. “These findings describe the mechanistic basis behind earlier evidence suggesting varied pain thresholds in different pigmentation backgrounds,” said Dr. David Fisher of the Massachusetts General Hospital in Massachusetts. He led the fiery study published in the journal Science Advances. The research found that the cells that determine skin color — called melanocytes — play a large role in deciding how people experience pain.

Young Irish immigrants in Canada have expressed their annoyance at being forced to undertake an English-proficiency test, despite English being their first language, when applying for Canadian permanent resident status.

Colin Firth almost missed out on the role that launched his acting career because his hair was thought to be too 'ginger', it has been revealed. The British actor, 56, became something of an overnight heartthrob thanks to his portrayal of Fitzwilliam Darcy in the 1995 BBC adaptation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. But screenwriter Andrew Davies has now revealed he was initially unsure about the star - until he was convinced to darken his hair.

Short man robs bank in supermarket FALLBROOK, Calif. — A diminutive man in sunglasses robbed a North County supermarket banking desk Friday, authorities reported. The thief, who appeared to be in his early 30s, handed a demand note to a teller at the U.S. Bank office at the Albertsons store in the 1100 block of South Mission Road in Fallbrook shortly after 10 a.m., according to the FBI. The bandit fled with an undisclosed amount of money. Witnesses described him as a roughly 5-foot-4-inch, 110-pound white man with short brown hair, freckles and protruding ears. The same man is believed...

Dozens of young redheaded men and women are replacing the ritual bullying of the playground with the ritual strictures of radical Islam, perhaps – at least according to some experts – as a result of the bullying and persecution they endure early in life. You’ve likely already made the connection between ginger hair and home-grown Islamic radicals yourself. Subconsciously, perhaps, from newspaper reports showing carrot-topped wannabe jihadis from Bradford, and TV clips of auburn brothers in east London. What you probably don’t know is just how vastly over-represented redheads are in the ranks of Islamist converts. There are no surveys...

She’s got copper-colored locks, a peppy personality, an ethnically diverse group of friends, and she knows how to talk millions of Americans into buying a Monterey Ranch Crispy Chicken Sandwich. She’s the Wendy’s Girl. The actress who has played the all-knowing, slightly kooky burger lover for two years is a 28-year-old Alabama native named Morgan Smith Goodwin. (She added her second surname after marrying Dave Goodwin, manager of New York City restaurant Gramercy Tavern.) And while her character has remained nameless in the fast food chain’s TV commercials, it’s not a far stretch to assume she’s Wendy, the freckled little...

A DNA expert has has made the bold claim that ginger hair gene could die out if Scotland climate improves. REDHEADS could become extinct as Scotland gets sunnier, experts have claimed. The gene that causes red hair is thought to be an evolutionary response to the lack of sun in Scotland. Redhead colouring allows people to get the maximum vitamin D from what little sun there is. Only one to two per cent of the world’s population has red hair but in Scotland the figure is about 13 per cent, or 650,000 people.