Redheads Extinct by 2100!?

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

Ah fuck.

Will rare redheads be extinct by 2100?

By Robin L. Flanigan
Rochester (N.Y.) Democrat and Chronicle

She was just walking down the street with her sister, in her old neighborhood, when an elderly woman stopped her car in front of her and called out, "I love your hair! It's so beautiful!"

Caitlin Tydings was about 8 then, and caught off guard. Now a high-school senior, she has since grown accustomed to strangers commenting on her strawberry-blond locks.

If predictions by the Oxford Hair Foundation come to pass, the number of natural redheads everywhere will continue to dwindle until there are none left by the year 2100.

The reason, according to scientists at the independent institute in England, which studies all sorts of hair problems, is that just 4 percent of the world's population carries the red-hair gene. The gene is recessive and therefore diluted when carriers produce children with people who have the dominant brown-hair gene.

Dr. John Gray's explanation of his foundation's findings: "The way things are going, red hair will either be extremely rare or extinct by the end of the century."

Red hair certainly has made the endangered list. But with 4 percent of 6.4 billion people carrying the gene, says University of Rochester Medical Center's David Pearce, it is too large a figure to be wiped out completely in the next 95 years.

"I think someone may want to check their calculator," he says. The red-hair gene "will dilute out and become rare, but there are a variety of other factors that can change hair color that are not really understood well right now."

The gene responsible for red hair was only discovered in the late 1990s. People have a good chance of being born with red hair if they have a mutation of that gene.

Red hair is found in all ethnic backgrounds but is most commonly associated with people of Celtic descent.

Red hair skipped two generations before sprouting on Brianna McBride, a 5-year-old preschooler from Penfield, N.Y. It comes from her great-grandmother on her father's side.

"As a baby, we'd be in the store and people would always try to touch her head. She didn't like that, so she was very shy," recalls her mom, Alice. As Brianna got older, "we started to point out other redheads, and she started understanding."

Now, her mom adds, "she looks forward to the attention. She has really learned how to use it."

[KrauserKrauser]

Could have sworn this was posted before.
I must be going crazy.

[RedImperator]

Um, am I missing something here, or would a heavily diluted recessive gene still express itself occasionally when it meets up with another copy of itself? If the number of redheads was declining because redheads weren't breeding, it would be one thing, but just the opposite is happening: the gene for redheadedness is being passed on to future generations.

[Spyder]

Obviously this calls for a captive breeding program. Man the electrodes!

[Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba]

One thing: if designer babies really become as simple as some think, redheads would keep popping up periodically as it became trendy.

[weemadando]

Goddamnit, without sexy redheads where will the world be?

[Darth Servo]

Unless there is some selective pressure against red hair, I don't see why it should go extinct. Are red heads somehow less likely to have children?

The gene itself being "diluted" doesn't mean its going extinct. It just means its being spread out among the general population. Most people with the gene would be heterozygous and thus need to find another heterozygous person to produce a red-headded child but the frequency of the gene itself should remain pretty constant. That is assuming that its one gene responsible for the trait of course.

[LaserRifleofDoom]

One thing: if designer babies really become as simple as some think, redheads would keep popping up periodically as it became trendy.

I cannot count on both my hands the number of people who have expressedly wished they had hair like mine.

[Admiral Valdemar]

I highly doubt redheads will go extinct. Maybe they'll be a smaller proportion of the population, but to be phased out entirely means something is really acting against the genes that code for that hair colour, which shouldn't happen given this is really sexual selection going on and many people love redheads, myself included.

[LadyTevar]

I have the strawberry blond hair, like my paternal grandmother. Her mother had the deep 'true red' hair, not auburn. A couple of my paternal grandfather's brothers had red hair, and passed it down the line, so that I have 3 paternal cousins I know of with red hair (I'm not that close to them, my father's family just wasn't that way).

My mother's family, on the other hand, has that Irish Clan mentality, and I have a great deal of information on them. My maternal grandfather had carot-top hair, as did one or two of his brothers. My maternal grandmother had a brother with red hair. One of my maternal uncles had auburn hair, one of his sons had dark auburn, the other carrottop. Those are only two of the 26 grandchildren... I think about 8 of my first cousins were some variation of red: auburn, carrot, 'true', or strawberry. There are roughly 1/3 of the great-grands who have red hair, and that figure seems to continue to the 2ndgreats.

Going out shopping at the local grocery store, I can see maybe 50-100 people in the store, with about 2/3 being caucasian. Of that, there are usually at least 3-4 with that brillant redhair that stands out in a crowd, usually on children under 10yrs old, while one parent has brown, blond, or a more muted shade of red. The only black-haired parents with red-haired children are those who dye it black, in my limited exposure.

EDIT:
of course, I live in the Appalachians, well known to be a bastion of close family ties. All joking aside, our family trees *DO* branch out, they just go into twisted knots as cousin from one side marries cousin from another (never closer than 3rd remove!)

[Rye]

Well, if they're dwindling into nonexistence, I don't really care. Anyone that wants to look ...ginger... can do so with the usual hair colouring chemicals. We may lose one mutant gene, but it's not something that really concerns me. If there's some sort of plague that kills off humanity and would've only been stopped by the existence of the gene, again, I won't care because I'll be dead!

[Gunhead]

We needs them red hairs. Red hair = sexy.
I have no idea why this is so, but I find red hair to be an incredible turn on.
Red hair 4thewin!!!
And I know you weirdo normal people like it too. So just come out and say it you freaking wannabe perverts.

+sarcasm

-Gunhead

[Spoonist]

This is just as silly as those unscientific studies in the past that has talked about blondes or short people becoming extinct.
Someone reads the first chapter in genetics and can't be bothered to read the rest.

Now if redheads would dissapear in a brownhaired population then there would be no redheads in spain/italy/greece, where there is a lot of brownhaired people. But oh wait a second, that is right they have redheads as well...

[loomer]

Dear god. We can't lose redheads. They're too bloody sexy.

Quickly, man the genetic engineering stations!

[DPDarkPrimus]

As someone with the redhead gene, I volunteer to assist in ensuring there are more redheads in the future.

Ladies, want to help me make a difference?

[Mr Bean]

As someone with the redhead gene, I volunteer to assist in ensuring there are more redheads in the future.

Ladies, want to help me make a difference?

Bah, your so last century, bring on the designer babies!

Hell by 2100, the rarest hair color will most like be brown thanks to the thousands opon thousands of blue and pink, and purple and shock white babies from the Asia's (And a smattering of Euro/American kids to boot)

[Wicked Pilot]

This thead could so use some pictures.

[Cos Dashit]

One thing: if designer babies really become as simple as some think, redheads would keep popping up periodically as it became trendy.

Especially by the year 2100. You might not even have to design the baby. You can just get a hair transplant or something similar whenever you decide. Hell, can you do that now? I'm sure it'll become quite less expensive though.

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

This thead could so use some pictures.

'Ere ya go!

[Molyneux]

GAH! The last two pics were SO damn creepy...

That girl needs to get some sun. NOW.
And, well, Carrot Top is creepy by definition.

[J_Cayman]

'Ere ya go!

My eyes!! It burns...

[Alyeska]

The only black-haired parents with red-haired children are those who dye it black, in my limited exposure.

My Dad's hair is black as can be. I have red hair.

[Covenant]

I first read that as 'rednecks extinct by 2100' and was about to get all excited, but alas! It is not the case. My mom's a redhead, so I've got red in my beard, but not on my head.

[Academia Nut]

Heh, anyone else when they saw Einhander's post think, "Wait... these are all redheaded women, where's the men? This is an Einhander post afterall." Thus while not gay, the Carrot Top pic came as something of a relief because it showed that some goateed mirror universe, ultra straight Einhander had not found his way into our reality. Because I would pity the shock that poor bastard would suffer upon learning of his doppleganger. No mirror universe clone should have to learn that their counterpart would probably want to have sex with them unless they themselves are gay, because honestly Einhander I see you as the kind of guy who would find his clone incredibly sexy and bangable if given half the chance.

Anyway, back on the topic at hand: redheads. While natural redheads are likely to suffer a decline in population over the next century, with genetic engineering within two generations who knows what the distribution of alleles will look like. Plus this is probably along the same lines of pseudo-racist scaremongering that predicts that "oh noes! teh brown people are taking over!" Unless the trait is actively selected against it wouldn't go completely away, and honestly, there are enough horny guys and gals out there who find red hair sexy to prevent that from happening any time soon.

[Superman]

Einy, that second chick down with the big tits looks good.

Yeah but can we get red hair without the pasty white skin tone?