All articles tagged with #mc1r
Live Science debunks the extinction myth: red hair stems from a recessive MC1R variant that can persist in the population through carriers who don’t display red hair themselves. While redheads are a small minority (under 2% globally) and have higher melanoma risk, there’s no evidence the trait is disappearing; frequency may fluctuate with migration, but as long as MC1R variants exist in the gene pool, redheads aren’t going extinct.
World Redhead Day on May 26 shines a light on red hair—with fewer than 2% of people having it and Scotland and Ireland as hotspots—while noting eight genes, including MC1R, influence red hair; the rare blue-eyed redhead combo occurs about 0.17%, redheads may require about 20% more anesthesia, produce more vitamin D, are often overrepresented in ads, and the hair color isn’t going extinct.
A Harvard-led study analyzing about 16,000 ancient genomes and DNA from over 6,000 modern people identifies around 479 genetic variants under selection in the last 10,000 years, including MC1R variants linked to red hair and pale skin, which may have spread because pale skin absorbs vitamin D more efficiently as farming diets became common.