All blue-eyed people share a secret

Recently, scientists made an amazing discovery. It turns out that all blue-eyed people descend from one ancient man who lived in Europe 6 000-10 000 years ago. He first appeared an unusual mutation, which today is considered quite common color of the iris of the eye.

Originally all people on Earth had brown eyes. With time, thanks to gene OCA2, the amount of dark pigment started to vary in individuals, which led to the appearance of different shades of brown color. With this information, scientists knew that blue eyes could not occur in any known way.







But not so long ago, scientists discovered a separate gene called HERC2 — he is responsible for blue eye color. This gene reduces the influence of gene ОСА2, which determines the amount of dark pigment melanin. It is considered that the deviation occurred when the ancient people began to migrate from Africa to Europe thousands of years ago. Thus, all blue-eyed people descended from the first European immigrants.

The first person with this mutation has not been detected. Today, blue eyes were only observed in the remains of ancient man discovered in the North of Spain. Of course, the eyes of a 7,000-year-old skeleton has not been preserved, but scientists were able to restore their color using genetic analysis.

Source iflscience
Translation Of The Website
Photos on the preview MaxFrost/Depositphotos


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