Lame, lame, lame

There's some lame stuff written about global warming but the nonsense below takes the cake.  Hair colour is determined by your genes, not by the temperature.  The only way the frequency of a particular gene can be reduced in nature is for that gene to be  selected against in mating.  And why a slight increase in temperature would make redheads less desirable in bed is not explained

Global warming could lead to the extinction of Scotland's redheads, expects have claimed.

Experts believe that Scotland’s gloomy climate has led to a red hair emerging as a genetic adaptation to help exploit rare sunny days and boost Vitamin D production.

But as the world warms up, some predict that the change in climate will lead to more sunny days for the Scots - meaning they will no longer be so well adapted to their environment.

Only about 1-2 per cent of the world’s population has red hair but in Scotland the figure is much higher, with about 13 per cent, or 650,000 people, with flaming locks.

Alastair Moffat, managing director of genetic testing company ScotlandsDNA, said the country’s dull weather was responsible for a larger number of flame-haired men and women being born.

Dr Moffat told the Daily Record: 'We think red hair in Scotland, Ireland and the north of England is adaptation to the climate. We do not get enough sun and have to get all the vitamin D we can.

'If it was to get less cloudy and there was more sun, there would be fewer people carrying the gene.'

Red hair appears in people with two copies of a recessive gene on chromosome 16, which causes a mutation.

That means a person who does not have red hair can still produce red-haired children if they and their partner is a carrier of the gene.

Despite concerns that red hair dying out, many experts say it is likely to continue for many generations.

Research publised last year by BritainsDNA found that 20million people in the UK and Ireland have ginger genes.

The most red-headed part of Britain and Ireland is the South-East of Scotland with Edinburgh as a red-hotspot where 40 per cent carry one of the three common red hair gene variants.

But the biggest surprise revealed by the research is just over 34 per cent of the population of parts of the north of England are carriers, making Yorkshire and Humberside as red-headed as Ireland.

SOURCE

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).