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Small Genetic Change Responsible For Blond Hair
sciencehabit (1205606) writes "For all those brunettes wishing they were naturally blond, a small genetic change could have made all the difference. Scientists have found that replacing one of DNA's four letters at a key spot in the genome shifts a particular gene's activity and leads to fairer hair. Not only does the work provide a molecular basis for flaxen locks, but it also demonstrates how changes in segments of DNA that control genes, not just changes in genes themselves, are important to what an organism looks like."
Clearly you must be a blonde.
Although their powers are not very impressive.
Scientists have found that replacing one of DNA's four letters
DNA is only three letters.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
Perhaps the Triple Nine needs to learn use a browser with a spellchecker?
And are you a member of Mensa by any chance?
Originally, "gene" meant "heritable element". Outside of molecular biology, it still does. That DNA can encode the construction of protein was the first connection molecular biologists discovered from genotype to phenotype. This caused them to mistakenly redefine "gene", because they supposed it was the only connection. Since they have now found other kinds of heritable elements in DNA, it is time for them to revert to the older definition, and come up with some other term for the subset of genes that encode protein.
Citing the bell curve?,LMFAO
Obvious troll is obvious but still....
Q: What have Africans done for humanity?
A: Everything, since as far as we know Homo Sapiens evolved there.
Your question reminds me the hilarious "What the Romans did for us" gag...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
A blonde woman was speeding down the road in her little red sports car and was pulled over by a woman police officer who was also a blonde.
The blonde cop asked to see the blondes' driver's license. She dug through her purse and was getting progressively more agitated.
"What does it look like?" she finally asked.
The policewoman replied, "It's square and it has your picture on it."
The driver finally found a square mirror in her purse, looked at it and handed it to the policewoman. "Here it is," she said.
The blonde officer looked at the mirror, then handed it back saying, "OK, you can go. I didn't realize you were a cop."
Next they need to work out the sequence for Ginger (Red for you Americans) Hair!
Hear, hear!
Who cares about yellow hair when there are attractive women.
Sometimes, they use hypnotherapy to achieve the same effect.
Ezekiel 23:20
This is complete and utter bullshit. Just look at chimps, which are born with black hair that greys (i.e. gets lighter) as they age. Same with gorillas. Or arctic animals, such as foxes and hares, which have white hair during the winter and darker (usually brown) hair during the mating season.
When we look at humans, most races only have black and very dark brown hair. So why would there be any hard-wired preference for a trait that doesn't exist? Furthermore, if you were right, wouldn't middle/upper class women in Africa and India dye their hair bright colors? But they don't. And, anecdotally, I've always found brown hair more attractive then blond hair, although I suppose I'm an evolutionary freak in your eyes.
The western attraction to light hair is a media-driven phenomenon. We are showered with ads that tell us that thin, blond haired, tanned women are the physical ideal. Meanwhile, media in China and India goes in the exact opposite direction: Light skin is highly valued, and tan models from western media are often seen as ugly. And before you turn around and try to claim that this is a racial thing, it isn't. Just go back to Victorian times: 19th century Western Europeans preferred women with very light skin and a bit of meat on them, not the darker skinned thin-as-a-stick models of today.
And did they figure out which gene makes Blondes so incredibly stupid?
Queue Julie Brown Song:
I took an IQ test and I failed it of course;
I can't spell VW but I drive a Porsche!
'Cause I'm a blonde, B-L-A-N-D,
'Cause I'm a blonde, don't you wish you were me!
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Every human being on the planet is more attracted to light colored hair than dark because, evolution-wise, it indicates being younger and thus more likely to have a healthy baby in theory.
This appears to be a pretty dramatically unfounded statement. I would be interested in your evidence for this claim, however.
It is unfortunate that most people -- even modern Africans -- are unaware of the ancient achievements that came out of Africa.
Many of the modern high-school level concepts in mathematics were first developed in Africa -- as was the first method of counting. These concepts include division and multiplication of fractions and geometric formulas to calculate the area and volume of shapes. They also invented mathematical methods for measuring distances and the use of angles -- including dividing a circle into 360 degrees and an early estimate of pi.
Eight thousand years ago, people in present-day Zaire developed their own numeration system, as did Yoruba people in what is now Nigeria. The Yoruba system was based on units of 20 (instead of 10) and required an impressive amount of subtraction to identify different numbers. Scholars have lauded this system, as it required much abstract reasoning.
This is just in the area of mathematics. Several ancient African cultures birthed discoveries in astronomy. Many of these are foundations on which we still rely, and some were so advanced that their mode of discovery still cannot be understood. Egyptians charted the movement of the sun and constellations and the cycles of the moon. They divided the year into 12 parts and developed a yearlong calendar system containing 365 ¼ days. Clocks were made with moving water and sundial-like clocks were used.
Many advances in metallurgy and tool making were made across the entirety of ancient Africa. These include steam engines, metal chisels and saws, copper and iron tools and weapons, nails, glue, carbon steel and bronze weapons and art.
Advances in Tanzania, Rwanda and Uganda between 1,500 and 2,000 years ago surpassed those of Europeans then and were astonishing to Europeans when they learned of them. Ancient Tanzanian furnaces could reach 1,800C — 200 to 400C warmer than those of the Romans.
There are plenty of other examples in areas such as architecture, engineering, medicine and navigation.
Here are some references for your perusal:
Based on your system, all we have to do is look at Greece to conclude that Western Europeans are much more intelligent than the Greeks.
Queen Elizabeth I put lead-based white-paint on her face because she didn't want to look "tan" like people who work outdoors for a living.
Then the tan was a status symbol meaning you could travel to foreign countries. Now it's a symbol that you're a cheap holiday maker / self-tanner who goes just for the look of the thing and, thus, it's out of fashion.
It's never as simple as "trait X is more attractive", even in genetics.
"They failed to mention the much more interesting and strange genetic feature. Every human being on the planet is more attracted to light colored hair than dark"
They failed to mention that because it's bullshit.
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If memory serves the suggestion was made in the article that the same sequence is responsible for both blondes and redheads, by lightening the underlying color, which without lightening comes out brunette either way.
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No Queen Elizabeth I put lead-based white paint on her face because she was horribly disfigured by smallpox in 1563. Either you are not English or are woefully ignorant of our history.
"It is unfortunate that most people -- even modern Africans -- are unaware of the ancient achievements that came out of Africa. "
People tend to calcify the situation of very recent history and project it earlier - it's as natural and understandable a tendency as it is regrettable. A longer term view would resolve these little bugbears easily.
The Europeans have been ascendant for a few hundred years, but before that it was a backwater. East and North Africa on the other hand are ancient population centres that have seen civilizations rise and fall repeatedly from the beginning, which have been ascendant not once but multiple times over the course of history.
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Now, where the heck do the blonde jokes come from? I've never seen any association between stupidity or airheadedness with blonde people.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Asians tend to score about 6 points higher on IQ tests (Ethnic Group Differences In Cognitive Ability In Employment And Educational Settings: A Meta-Analysis)
"No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session." -- Judge Gideon J. Tucker
Iron age, actually.
Rs12821256, genotype (C;C) has "2x higher likelihood of blond hair" according to SNPedia (based on earlier work), but this new article claims the G allele is associated with blonde hair. Not sure what that means...
Where Blue eyes and Blond hair originated.
The subject itself is a troll gimme, as is the best answer in the link https://answers.yahoo.com/ques...
Having Blond hair and Blue eyes I traced their evolution long ago, Scandinavia was the origin; for a fast post the link was the first hit.
One, and only one, of the following is true:
Seriously, "proven scientific fact"? By all means, please show us the pop-science article that you barely skimmed to come to that conclusion. If it even exists.
This story is a bit too much inside-ball to be interesting, but still, I'm surprised they didn't say anything about the link between blonde and red hair... Though not exclusive, it seems rare to find someone with blonde hair, without a red-haired ancestor. Even as much of a recessive trait as blonde hair may be, red hair is even more extreme, and the two seem very closely linked.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Anyone who watches movies knows about the blond bad-guy and the blonde goddess. This blond gene apparently has pleiotropic effects that make men disgusting scum-of-the-earth and women the object of every man's desire.
Strange how that works.
Seastead this.
Sure:
In addition, before bottles of hydrogen peroxide became available, blonde hair in females could be interpreted as an honest signal of youth and therefore reproductive fitness. This is because postmenopausal women rarely retain the flaxen locks of their youth, of course eventually becoming grey grannies. Interestingly, Aboriginal tribes have evolved blonde hair in females independently of the Nordic blonde.3 As this has occurred in an environment not lacking UVB this suggests that sexual selection has been more important than the forces of natural selection.....and retention of blonde hair into adulthood is a sexually selected indicator of fitness in females. Caucasian blondes are usually slightly higher in oestrogen than brunettes
http://www.theguardian.com/sci...
Also, blue and green and brown eyes are found to be more attractive because of a subconscious checking of the other person's pupils. If they are also attracted to you, they will be slightly dilated and our brains pick up on that. With practically jet black irises, that doesn't work so your brain automatically tells you not to bother because the person isn't interested in you.
Where did you read the blond gene was linked to intellegence?
It's also much easier for idiots to post inflammatory remarks anonymously.
Now, where the heck do the blonde jokes come from?
Probably from the genetic metabolic disorder Phenylketonuria (PKU). This enzyme failure, if untreated by a phenylaline-restricted diet, leads to a constelation of symptoms that include mental deficiency, blonde or light hair, and blue eyes.
Interestingly, one of Hitler's pre-war programs was an attempt to breed more blonde-haired, blue-eyed, Germans. The main result was a drastic increase in the prevalence of PKU in the German population.
On the other hand, very pretty women tend to experience a social environment where they are rewarded for interacting with others, regardless of how they are behaving otherwise. If consistently rewarded for any statement, whether right or wrong, they have no incentison learn to use and demonstrate intelligence.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Maybe English is your 4th or 5th language, since you're obviously so smart, but something can't be 'very unrepresented'. Very doesn't work like that. Maybe you were thinking of very underrepresented, highly under-represented or something similar.
Mary Ann!
His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
Flaxen/blonde hair isn't a signal of youth of most cultures, because it simply doesn't happen, It might work as a signal of youth in a subset of European cultures or in Australian/Melanesian (as you note).
The blonde hair of Australian/Melanesian peoples isn't just in the females, though it is more prominent in females. That it isn't consistent with the UV-vitaminD hypothesis doesn't suggest sexual selection is involved, only that UV-selection isn't involved.
The pupil thing does sound likely, however. Cultures with predominantly black irises would have to rely on other characteristics to identify interest from others.