Blue-eyes have a single, common ancestor

Prof. Eiberg, ScienceDaily, 2008; Amber Larson, Seth Auberon (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

ALL blue-eyed people have a common ancestor?

Research shows that people with blue eyes have a single, common ancestor.

A team at the University of Copenhagen has tracked down a genetic mutation that took place 6,000-10,000 years ago [founder] and is the cause of the eye color of all blue-eyed humans alive on the planet today.

What is the genetic mutation?

The historical Buddha had blue eyes.

"Originally, we all had brown eyes," said Professor Hans Eiberg from the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine.

"But a genetic mutation affecting the OCA2 gene in our chromosomes resulted in the creation of a 'switch,' which literally 'turned off' the ability to produce brown eyes."

• In fact, ALL human eyes are brown and only appear to be other colors by the way they scatter light, including "blue" eyes

The OCA2 gene codes for the so-called P protein, which is involved in the production of melanin, the pigment that gives color to our hair, eyes, and skin.

Eye colors map of Europe (Frost/Wiki)

The "switch," which is located in the gene adjacent to OCA2 does not, however, turn off the gene entirely, but rather limits its action to reducing the production of melanin in the iris -- effectively "diluting" brown eyes to blue.

The switch's effect on OCA2 is therefore very specific. If the OCA2 gene had been completely destroyed or turned off, human beings would be without melanin in their hair, eyes, or skin color [and all racial divisions would have to depend on something else] -- a condition known as albinism.

Limited genetic variation

Viking Age Buddha: Helgo Treasure

Variation in the color of the eyes from brown to green can all be explained by the amount of melanin in the iris, but blue-eyed individuals only have a small degree of variation in the amount of melanin in their eyes.

"From this we can conclude that all blue-eyed individuals are linked to the same ancestor," says Professor Eiberg. "They have all inherited the same switch at exactly the same spot in their DNA."

Brown-eyed individuals, by contrast, have considerable individual variation in the area of their DNA that controls melanin production.

Professor Eiberg and his team examined mitochondrial DNA and compared the eye color of blue-eyed individuals in countries as diverse as Jordan, Denmark, and Turkey. His findings are the latest in a decade of genetic research, which began in 1996, when Professor Eiberg first implicated the OCA2 gene as being responsible for eye color.

Nature shuffles our genes

Does that sort of make us incestuous relatives?

The mutation of brown eyes to blue represents neither a positive nor a negative mutation.

It is one of several mutations such as hair color, baldness, freckles, and beauty spots, which neither increases nor reduces a human's chance of survival. [Since by "survival" is meant the fitness to send one's genes into the future, these things do impact it.]

What about one of each? Heterochromia Iridis

As Professor Eiberg says, "it simply shows that nature is constantly shuffling the human genome, creating a genetic cocktail of human chromosomes and trying out different changes as it does so." More

• Blue eye color in humans may be caused by a perfectly associated founder mutation in a regulatory element located within the HERC2 gene inhibiting OCA2 expression | Human Genetics (springer.com)
• Mummified feces reveals pre-Columbian cultures of the Caribbean consumed a diversity of plants [no cannibalism]

Why 82% of Mexico is empty (video)

RealLifeLore, Feb. 18, 2023; Crystal Quintero, Pfc. Sandoval (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Mexican food is best.

(RealLifeLore) A large portion of the country of Mexico, or the United Mexican States as it's really named, is little populated, whereas most of its population of 128 million is squeezed into a tight band at the center. Why? And why has it been like this for so long? In looking into it, we find out a lot about the USA, too.

• Buddhism in Mexico

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Select video clips are courtesy of Getty Images. Select video clips are courtesy of the AP Archive.  Special thanks to MapTiler/OpenStreetMap Contributors and GEOlayers 3.

UN: World hunger reaches 1 billion mark

Alessandra Rizzo (AP)

"The silent hunger crisis is affecting one-sixth of all of humanity"

Indian workers silhouetted load rice sacks onto a truck at a grain market on the eve of World Food Day in Amritsar, India, 2008. The U.N. agency FAO is reporting today 6/19/08 that over 1 billion people across the world are hungry (AP/Altaf Qadri/file).

ROME – The global financial meltdown has pushed the ranks of the world's hungry to a record 1 billion, a grim milestone that poses a threat to peace and security, U.N. food officials said today.

Because of war, drought, political instability, high food prices, and poverty, hunger now affects one in six people, by the United Nations' estimate. The financial meltdown has compounded the crisis in what the head of the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization called a "devastating combination for the world's most vulnerable."

• Slideshow: World Hunger
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Compared with last year, there are 100 million more people who are hungry, meaning they consume fewer than 1,800 calories a day, the agency said.

"No part of the world is immune," FAO's Director-General Jacques Diouf said. "All world regions have been affected by the rise of food insecurity."

Indian vegetable vendor weighs produce at a wholesale market on the outskirts of Hyderabad in April 2009. The OECD and the UN's agriculture agency said in a report that world food prices will rise over the next 10 years but are unlikely to hit the peaks seen during the food crisis in 2007 and 2008 (AFP/file/Noah Seelam).

The crisis is a humanitarian one, but also a political issue. Officials presenting the new estimates in Rome sought to stress the link between hunger and instability, noting that soaring prices for staples, such as rice, triggered riots in the developing world last year.

Josette Sheeran of the World Food Program, another U.N. food agency based in Rome, said hungry people rioted in at least 30 countries last year. Most notably, soaring food prices led to deadly riots in Haiti and the overthrow of the prime minister.

"A hungry world is a dangerous world," Sheeran said. "Without food, people have only three options: They riot, they emigrate, or they die. None of these are acceptable options."

Even though prices have retreated from their mid-2008 highs, they are still "stubbornly high" in some domestic markets, according to FAO. On average, food prices were 24 percent higher in real terms at the end of 2008 compared to 2006, it said.

"Malnutrition kills through the fact that it weakens the immune system of a child," said Andrei Engstrand-Neacsu, a Nairobi, Kenya-based spokesman for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies... More>>

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