Blue-eyed people have only one ancestor who lived over 6000 years ago

At least six thousand years separated the first humans Blue eyes Among all the others that ever existed. What unites them is the fact that all others are descended from the former. The results have been published in cientific . magazine human genetics.

The common ancestor – which spontaneously developed a mutation for this eye color, according to researchers at the University of Copenhagen – lived between six and ten thousand years. The mutation inherited from their offspring is responsible for the eye color of about 8-10% of the world’s population today.

It is estimated that up to 10% of the world’s population have blue eyes.source: stock struggle

According to the study’s lead author, Professor Hans Eiberg, of the university’s Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, all humans have brown eyes in origin.

“A genetic mutation affecting the OCA2 gene in our chromosomes resulted in the creation of a ‘switch’ that literally disrupted the ability to produce brown eyes.” science daily.

The OCA2 gene encodes the so-called P protein, which is involved in the production of melanin, which gives color to our hair, eyes and skin. On the other hand, the switch Eiberg cited is in an adjacent gene, which does not turn off OCA2 completely, but rather limits its effect, reducing melanin production in the iris and “lightening” brown eyes to blue.

Green and brown eyes, unlike the mutation found in blue eyes, their severity is determined by the amount of melanin in each individual.

According to Professor Eiberg, the mutation is neither positive nor negative, but only an individual trait such as hair color, baldness, freckles and beauty spots which, as the researcher pointed out, neither increase nor decrease a person’s chance of survival.

For him, the study shows that nature is constantly shuffling the human genome, “creating a genetic mixture of chromosomes and experiencing various changes in doing so.”

Article: human genetics – This painful: 10.1007/s00439-007-0460-x.