Redheads Facing Extinction?

[TehBorken]

Some scientists are making the prediction that redheads may become extinct as early as 2060...any red-headed members here?
[/p][hr style="width: 100%; height: 2px;"] [em]The current National Geographic magazine reports that less than two per cent of the world's population has natural red hair, created by a mutation in northern Europe thousands of years ago.[/em][/p] [em]Global intermingling, which broadens the availability of possible partners, has reduced the chances of redheads meeting and producing little redheads of their own.[/em][/p] [em]If the gingers really want to save themselves they should move to Scotland. An estimated 40 per cent of Scots carry the red gene and 13 per cent actually have red hair.[/em][/p] [a href="http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22289183-2,00.html"]Link[/a]  

[Sportsdude]

nope not a redhead. Was born blond, then went brown/black. lol  

[Lise]

I bet the predominant gene is black hair. Blonde hair number even less than red hair as blonde is a recessive gene.  

[Sportsdude]

I dunno, although I think its a german trait. I was dark blonde hair kid up until around 4 then the blonde part just faded away. Every other cousin was the same way.  

[49er]

TehBorken wrote:
[SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold"]Some scientists are making the prediction that redheads may become extinct as early as 2060...any red-headed members here?[/SPAN]


[HR style="WIDTH: 100%; HEIGHT: 2px"]     I doubt it.........by 2060 they be cloning redheads

[P.C.]

I think I remember reading once that all babies....yes ALL babies start with blue eyes.

  I was platinum as a kid, and have remained very blonde.  I have 2 sisters who were also very blonde when they were little and one has almost black hair now.....and the other somewhere in the middle.

  My kids are the same.  The girls were platinum when little.  One remained very blonde....the other has almost black hair.  My son was the opposite.  I thought I'd given birth to a bloomin chimpanzee.  He had the darkest hair at birth.  By the time he was about 6 months old, turned platunum.  Go figure

[Sportsdude]

 yup all babies start with blue eyes.  
[a href="http://chemistry.about.com/cs/howthingswork/f/eyecolor.htm"]http://chemistry.about.com/cs/howthingswork/f/eyecolor.htm[/a]
 

[Lise]

Would you believe my littlest girl started with green eyes? Yeah, quite a shocker to me. Asian babies do not have green eyes. Unfortunately they're brown now. Waaaaah....

  I got no comparison. Our girls have black, black, black hair but they do have a bit of reddish tinge to it. Dunno why. We don't have any redheads (HAHA) in our family.

[Michel]

I thought at first that this thread was about global warming climate. Redheaded do burn badly under the sun.

[Vivek Golikeri]

Whether redheads will go extinct or not will be determined not by blood-mixing, but by fashion and cultural preferences. By 2060 genetic engineering will have become so commonplace that parents will be able to choose certain traits in their still-to-be-born kids.

  Blond hair and blue eyes will probably start popping up a dime a dozen among babies born in America or Canada in the decade of the 2060's, because in North American culture they are highly valued. The phenomenon of race itself will undergo selective modification. Large numbers of white people will get their genes modified so they can be very light in winter, and yet grow a deep and rich tan in summer. Meanwhile Asians will seek eyes that are less epicanthic, and Hispanics and persons of East Indian descent will make their children somewhat lighter.

  In a nutshell whites will get sometimes closer to Arabs or Mexicans, while Arabs, Mexicans and East Indians will grow more in the direction of whites. What blacks will do, I cannot foresee so easily. Some may opt for more Caucasoid traits, others seek to entrench their negroid details.

  At some point, government will need to step in and legislate certain clear limits. "The best interests of the unborn gene-engineered" will be the criterion. And you'll get the religious element screaming: "No,no! This is sacrilege! You are interfering with God's creation."

  The true criterion of what is allowed or not (in genetic engineering ) should be not whatever anyone believes is Heaven's will, but whether changes enhance or worsen THE QUALITY OF LIFE for the genetically modified. Removal of genes that cause diseases or defects, for example, is a no-brainer. But life is something sacred, and we cannot have people altering it at whim or for crass commercial gain. This decade everyone wants redheads, so we have a spate of redheads. Twenty years from now, they all want blonds....hey, wait a minute!

  What really counts here --- the fancy of the parents, or the best interests of the child to come?  

[Michel]