Thursday, August 22, 2013
The "Living with the Genetic Mutants" Story
It was an ordinary day. Back on July 21st I wrote about going to the eye doctor and having his assistant, Layne, tell me that at one time everyone had brown eyes and only with changes in our environment did the color of our eyes start to change. I'm not sure I believed him and I'm not sure how many of you believed what I wrote that day. Well, believe it! Why? Because I just read an article written by Professor Hans Eiberg from the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine at the University of Copenhagen who said, "Originally, we all had brown eyes." Ah, Ha! So now I can also believe it and I will tell Layne that when I return in a year, since I'm sure he thought that I thought he was crazy when he told me that. Professor Eiberg said, "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." The "switch" was a change from an "A" (adenineto) to a "G" (guanine) in the OCA2 gene that regulates the pigmentation of our eyes, hair and skin coloration. The mutation didn't totally deactivate the OCA2 gene or all blue-eyed people would be albinos. The Professor believes that the mutation took place 6,000 to 8,000 years ago in the northern region of the Black Sea where the great agriculture migration to the northern part of Europe took place in the Neolithic period. That one person who had the mutation occur within them is responsible for all the people in the world with blue eyes. Be easy to trace your ancestry if you have blue eyes, wouldn't it.
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