Scientists: Blue Eyes Are A Recent Genetic Mutation
According to a recent study, people with blue eyes have a single, common ancestor. A team of scientists claim to have tracked down a genetic mutation that leads to blue eyes. They say the mutation occurred between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago and that before then there were no blue eyes. “Originally, we all had brown eyes,” said Hans Eiberg from the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine at the University of Copenhagen. We can conclude that all blue-eyed individuals are linked to the same ancestor,” Eiberg said. “They have all inherited the same switch at exactly the same spot in their DNA.” Eiberg and his colleagues detailed their study in the Jan. 3 online edition of the journal Human Genetics. That genetic switch somehow spread throughout Europe and now other parts of the world. “The question really is, ‘Why did we go from having nobody on Earth with blue eyes 10,000 years ago to having 20 or 40 percent of Europeans having blue eyes now?” John Hawks of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “This gene does something good for people. It makes them have more kids.”
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