Sturm suggests that blue eyed individuals may have been better able to withstand the dark days of the Neolithic European winters. Perhaps those individuals were more motivated to go out hunting and take care of themselves.
If you were born with blue eyes, there are a few benefits you might not be aware of: Because less melanin allows for more light to pass through the eye, those with blue eyes can often tolerate longer periods of lower light. Blue eyes appear to have a lower risk of developing cataracts than brown eyes.
And further, the mutation can be linked to a single, common ancestor. Scientists speculate that the evolution of eye color paralleled the physical movement of our ancestors from warmer to colder climates. That's because it's believed that melanin in the eyes also acts a protective barrier from the sun.
There probably isn't an evolutionary advantage or disadvantage to any particular eye colour, which means that mutations that cause changes to eye colour (without having any other effect) make no difference to survival and reproduction.
The allele genes come in the form of brown, blue, or green, with brown being dominant, followed by green, and blue being the least dominant or what is called recessive. Given this information, you can determine what eye colors are dominant in the parents.
Of all eye colors, brown seems to be the only one that could be called “advantageous” from a survival perspective. While more research is needed, darker irises are linked to a number of health benefits, including these: Reduced risk of macular degeneration. Lower melanoma risk.
Posted Sept. 22, 2020, 8:05 a.m. It turns out most Vikings weren't as fair-haired and blue-eyed as legend and pop culture have led people to believe. According to a new study on the DNA of over 400 Viking remains, most Vikings had dark hair and dark eyes.
Disadvantages of Blue Eyes
Typically, people with blue eyes are likely to be more sensitive to light. With less pigment in the layers of the iris, they may be unable to block out the effects of bright fluorescent lights or sunlight. This condition of light sensitivity is called photophobia.
Blue eyes. This is the next most common eye color, encompassing about 10% of the population. While blue eyes are more sensitive to light during the day, people with blue eyes tend to see better at night – unless there are bright lights.
Yes. The short answer is that brown-eyed parents can have kids with brown, blue or virtually any other color eyes. Eye color is very complicated and involves many genes.
"The factors that can cause eyes to change colors—or appear to have different colors—include genes, diseases, medications and trauma," said Omar Chaudhary, MD, an ophthalmologist in Potomac, Md.
Approximately 8% to 10% of the global population have blue eyes. A 2002 study found that the prevalence of blue eye color among the white population in the United States to be 33.8% for those born from 1936 through 1951, compared with 57.4% for those born from 1899 through 1905.
The Single Gene Trait
There is one genetic variation, a human trait that has a single gene governing it, and that is eye color which is blue or brown. Brown eyes are dominant and blue eyes recessive.
People who are born blue-eyed are at higher risk of developing age-related macular degeneration. The research shows that there is less pigment in blue eyes, and green eyes for that matter, than there is in brown eyes. This means more light is able to penetrate blue eyes. This makes lighter eyes more sensitive to light.
Having blue eyes has its advantages. They lower your risk of developing cataracts, for instance. However, they might increase your risk of health problems like type 1 diabetes and eye cancer. Protecting your eyes and getting regular check ups is important no matter the color of your irises.
The laws of genetics state that eye color is inherited as follows: If both parents have blue eyes, the children will have blue eyes. The brown eye form of the eye color gene (or allele) is dominant, whereas the blue eye allele is recessive.
If we are speaking ethnically, the closest people to a Viking in modern-day terms would be the Danish, Norwegians, Swedish, and Icelandic people. Interestingly though, it was common for their male Viking ancestors to intermarry with other nationalities, and so there is a lot of mixed heritage.
The ethnic Miao people of Guizhou province from China, a subgroup of Hmong people, have been described as having blue eyes and blonde hair.
Light Colored Eyes
The Celtic people had a broad range of eye colors, such as blue, light blue, grey, and green, as well as the more common brown. The blue, grey, and green are thought to be mutations that occurred over thousands of years due to the Celts who lived in the far north of the world.
When broken down by gender, men ranked gray, blue, and green eyes as the most attractive, while women said they were most attracted to green, hazel, and gray eyes. Despite brown eyes ranking at the bottom of our perceived attraction scale, approximately 79% of the world's population sports melanin-rich brown eyes.
We found that green is the most popular lens colour, with brown coming in a close second, despite it being one of the most common eye colours. Although blue and hazel are seen as the most attractive eye colours for men and women they are surprisingly the least popular.
Your children inherit their eye colors from you and your partner. It's a combination of mom and dad's eye colors – generally, the color is determined by this mix and whether the genes are dominant or recessive. Every child carries two copies of every gene – one comes from mom, and the other comes from dad.