Blue eyes are rare, with only 8-10% of the world’s population having them. Hence, blue-eyed people are considered the most attractive in the human race. Scientists have shed new light on the origin of blue eyes, and surprisingly, it turns out that every blue-eyed person in the world is a descendant of one single person! Let’s know more about this intriguing fact.
The Findings
According to scientists, blue eyes are a type of recessive gene, which means one will need to have two of them for the visibility of the color. A study has found that this gene can be traced back to one person, which actually makes sense for its rarity. The genetic mutation responsible for blue eyes originated from a singular blue-eyed human, who lived between 6,000-10,000 years ago. For many years, researchers tried to discover the cause behind this mysterious change in human eye color by studying the OCA2 gene, a determining factor of the brown pigment level in the human eye. But they discovered that a completely different gene, HERC2, is responsible for the genetic mutation in blue-eyed people. This HERC2 turns off the OCA2 entirely, diluting the brown color into blue in our eyes’ pupils.
The Study
The scientific study in question was made in 2008 by a team of researchers from the University of Copenhagen. This group of researchers initially tracked down the gene mutation. They also confirmed that all blue-eyed people are linked to a common ancestor, as every single blue-eyed individual on Earth has the exact same genetic mutation. According to the author of the study Professor Hans Eiberg, all blue-eyed people have inherited the same genetic switch at exactly the same spot in their DNA, connecting them to one singular source individual. As startling as the fact is, the blue-eyed people in the world may have a reason to be incredibly uncomfortable by these research findings!