Got blue eyes? We know your ancestor haha

I came across this article which claims that all blue-eyed people can be traced back to one ancestor who lived near the Black Sea some 10,000 years ago. Haha I just find it really interesting and cool:


Human beings had brown eyes until a single mutation in a gene called OCA2 arose by chance in one individual, Professor Hans Eiberg from the University of Copenhagen said.

The mutation "turned off" the mechanism that produces brown melanin pigment and "diluted" brown eyes to blue.

Most likely occurring in the north-west part of the Black Sea between 6000 and 10,000 years ago, the gene was dispersed in the rapid waves of migration to northern Europe that followed the end of the last ice age.

Professor Eiberg said the finding, published in the journal Human Genetics, helped to explain why Europeans were far more likely to have blue eyes than any other ethnic grouping.

Europeans also had a far greater range of skin tones and hair colours living in the one community than the rest of the world, where people are almost uniformly dark-haired and dark-eyed.

The researchers examined mitochondrial DNA and compared the eye colour of blue-eyed people in countries as diverse as Jordan, Denmark and Turkey.

Variation in the eye colour 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.

"They have all inherited the same switch at exactly the same spot in their DNA," the professor said.

"From this we can conclude that all blue-eyed individuals are linked to the same ancestor."

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

Film stars such as "old blue eyes" Frank Sinatra, Nicole Kidman, Paul Newman, Cameron Diaz, Cate Blanchett and Daniel Craig are famed for their dazzling blue eyes, while scientists Marie Curie and Stephen Hawking also shared the prized trait.


For more info go to:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/all-blueeyed-people-traced-back-to-one-ancestor/2008/02/02/1201801096064.html