It's a question that has plagued many over the years. Why do so many non-redheads have ginger beards?
Beards has come into fashion in a major way in the past few years and thus there has been an increasing amount of ginger facial hair sprouting up on the faces of those that aren't redheads. Finally we have an answer as to why.
Genetics experts from Erfocentrum in Holland have revealed that its all down to a gene that we all have called MC1R.
As scientist Petra Haak-Bloem expains: "More than a decade ago, researchers discovered that one gene (MC1R) on chromosome 16 plays an important part in giving people red hair. MC1R’s task is making a protein called melanocortin 1. That protein plays an important part in converting pheolmelanine into eumelanine. When someone inherits two mutated versions of the MC1R-gene (one from each parent), less pheomelanine is converted into eumelanine. The [pheomelanine] accumulates in the pigment cells and the person ends up with red hair and fair skin."
Basically, something like hair colour isn't a simple as having one gene coding for the colour of your hair. Hair on different parts of the body can have different colouring. Which is why you may have found a different colour strand of hair in your eyebrows, or your nether regions for that matter!
Via UNILAD
