Hi,
I have a friend who’s African-American and has a few straight blonde hairs mixed in with his regular hair. Now, I realize that most African-Americans have at least one Caucasian ancestor, but I still don’t get how he could have blonde hair. I’m a biology major and from what I understood of genetics, black hair is dominant over blonde, and curly hair is always dominant over straight.
Thanks for the help.
sniff
sniff
I smell homework!
yeah right . … I wish I had homework that easy
Hi Sparkleegirl,
Of all the genetic things I’ve read and/or think about hair, skin and eye colors are the worst to deal with - there are just no really good answers right now. I know you have been told or have read about dominant and recessive but when it comes to hair, skin and eye color, you’ve probably been told only fibs. The same may be true for the mixture of hair colors, too. Several factors come together to determine these things. I’ll email you the best paper I can find.
Jois
Those are what is known as “polygenic traits,” meaning that there are many genes controling those characteristics. Despite what your intro genetics course probably implied, most traits are not determined in a pretty Mendellian fashion. Very few structures are as neat and simple as green v. yellow pea color or widow’s peak v. none. There are likely dozens of genes that affect hair color and structure; and they’re likely dominant, co-dominant, incompletely dominant, or in epistasis with each other and various other genes. Good luck explaining a system like that simply.
-b