The Origin of Mysterious, Dark-Skinned Blondes Discovered

This is an interesting find. Researchers have discovered that a single gene mutation caused the occurrence of blonde hair in the dark skinned residents of the Solomon Islands, and that the blonde hair is not caused by intermarrying with Europeans.

This research could be important to understanding the history of the blonde haired, dark skinned people around the world, and may help shatter the myths of intermarrying between the Europeans as the cause. It will be interesting if this gene helps explain the stories about blonde haired people in places like China and South America where the stories have become legends of heros and gods.

www.livescience.com...

Residents of the Solomon Islands in the Pacific have some of the darkest skin seen outside of Africa. They also have the highest occurrence of blond hair seen in any population outside of Europe. Now, researchers have found the single gene that explains these fair tresses.

A single mutation is responsible for almost half of the variation in Solomon Islanders' hair color, the scientists reported Thursday (May 3) in the journal Science. Most strikingly, this gene mutation seems to have arisen in the Pacific, not been brought in by fair-haired Europeans intermarrying with islanders.

"[T]he human characteristic of blond hair arose independently in equatorial Oceania," study researcher Eimear Kenny, a postodoctoral scholar at the Stanford University School of Medicine, said in a statement. "That's quite unexpected and fascinating."

A genome-wide analysis turned up a shockingly clear result, rare in the world of genetics where a single trait can be influenced by dozens or more genes. A gene called TYRP1, which resides on the ninth chromosome of human's 23 pairs of chromosomes, explained 46.4 percent of the variation in the islanders' hair color. (Chromosomes are coiled packets of DNA.) A mutation in this gene affects an enzyme known to be involved in human pigmentation, the researchers found.

This mutation doesn't appear in European genomes, an analysis of genomes from 52 human populations around the world revealed. Rather, it seems to have arisen independently and persisted in the Melanesian population

reply to post by isyeye


S&F for an interesting article!

I was surprised to find out that there is a such thing as someone with dark skin and blond hair. It's certainly unique!

S&F But what about dark skin and ginger hair?

Wes Brown

is this the Dark skinned blonde youre talking about:

We call them super-saiyens.

Well hair and skin, and eye color are not on the same gene cluster. And blond hair is equally dominant to dark and they layer to create brown.

I was born with pale golden, honey colored skin and very fair hair until teen years, nordic sand colored hair basically, in the summer, pale honey the rest of the time, and brown eyes. I carry tons of blue eyed genes, and 4/5 boys are blue and green hazel eyed, only one brown.

With regards to hidden groups of people, I can't see why this also wouldn't be possible. There is alot more to human history, than the little bit we're given.

Blond haired and red haired mummies.

www.burlingtonnews.net...

Tons of links on this page, but its not all tribes of dan, this stuff goes back to the legends of ancient history, past cycles.