Saturday, September 15, 2007

I've always wanted to be a Red Head

I love red hair, envious of those with red mops, particularly the thick curly long ones. I even like the freckles that so often accompany those fiery passionate red locks. So, I was just horrified, in mourning almost, when I read in National Geographic (September 2007 issue) that red heads are becoming extinct (supposedly by 2100)......GASP.

Interesting stats from the article...2% of the world's population are natural red heads, 13% of the population of Scotland are Redheads and in the US we spent 123 million$ on red hair dye in 2006. I am not one of them, because with my obvious Hispanic type looks I'd look like a freak! But my sister, who takes more after the WASPY side of the family, pale white skin and ice blue eyes, would look amazing with red, but she won't let me tell her what to do (and I'm older and everything...sheesh).

For now, I shall be satisfied that a red head married into the family (a purdy one too--see photos below) and maybe I'll get a red headed niece or nephew.

I'm not the only one interested in this little factoid of nonsensical information...I just happened along Chased by children via Dodi's blog and voila...more people blogging about this...who knew?

And just so no one thinks I'm so frivolous...HAHAHA, OK I AM, I KNOW....but there's also a fantastic article about Pakistan in this issue and worth the read.

6 comments:

Martha said...

One can always hope for that red-headed nephew/niece...but I'm guessing there will be some dominating genetic action making that a very remote possibility...

Colleen O said...

Orange and green are more popular now anyway =)

Anonymous said...

Chased by Children is my neighbor and very good friend, and I am here to report that one of her princesses is, in fact, a natural red head! Beautiful. How can a hair color possibly go extinct? I just don't see it happening.

Thanks for stopping by my blog, it was fun to find yours too.

Gina Grace said...

Gasp! Can this be?!? Perhaps it was natural selection that drove me to find your brother so attractive that one night at the bar...

In the hidden corners of my mind, I was thinking... "humm... he seems nice enough, and our off-spring might be able to go outside in the sun without UV protective clothing... perhaps I can breed the sun-sensitivity right OUT of my gene pool!..."

In other words- I can totally see how it would go extinct- its a nonsensical hair color, combined with anything-but-practical skin tone. We redheads just don't make evolutionary sense!

Lisaopolis said...

You heard it from the Redhead herself. Thank goodness I got the blonde and tan-able genes. Only the strong survive!;) servu

tz said...

the artical did say something about red heads being able to up the absorption of vit D but more prone to skin cancer...---i don't think there any red heads on our mother's or J's dad's, so gina, looks like the red heads stop with you and while you seem okay with that, i'm a bit sad....not hopefull that your sister's blond locks will sprout forward either...but hey good cancer-free hearty skin

maybe my boys will marry red heads...they probably have it in their genomes from jason's side (his aunt and grandmother...and my side, my paternal grandmother????)

there's hope still.