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[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"39210","attributes":{"class":"media-image","typeof":"foaf:Image","style":"","alt":"Never Stop Asking Why: Why is my hair blonde?"}}]]Do you have platinum, strawberry, golden or even dark blonde locks of hair? If you’ve ever looked in the mirror and thought, “Why is my hair blonde?”, then keep reading! We answer this question with help from Discovery News.
Like all genetic questions, the simple answer is that you got your goldielocks from your parents. While this holds true, there’s more! In early June of this year, evolutionary biologists reported that they had identified one of the genetic mutations that codes for blond hair in one-third of Northern Europeans.
They found the mutation in a long gene sequence called KIT ligand (KITLG), a gene we could not survive without. It not only affects pigmentation, but it also affects blood cells, nerve cells and sex cells. When David Kingsley, an evolutionary biologist at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Stanford University in California, and his colleagues discovered the mutation, they wanted to know how it could alter hair color without damaging other essential aspects of life.
It turns out that when the blonde segments are tagged with a gene that codes for fluorescent-blue, the blue hue appears only in hair follicles. Because no other parts of the body change color, Kingsley and his team concluded that the gene mutation was activated only in hair.
"There's a half dozen different chromosome regions that influence hair color," said Kingsley. "This is one, but not the only one. The combination of variants that you have at all those different genes — that sets your final hair color."
Looking for more Never Stop Asking "Why?" questions? Catch up on all of the past "Whys" on Pinterest or on the blog!
