10,000 Years Near the Black Sea Region...

I have blue eyes. All blue-eyed people can be traced back to one ancestor who lived 10,000 years ago near the Black Sea.

According to a team of researchers from Copenhagen University, a single mutation which arose as recently as 6-10,000 years ago was responsible for all the blue-eyed people alive on Earth today.

The team, whose research is published in the journal Human Genetics, identified a single mutation in a gene called OCA2, which arose by chance somewhere around the northwest coasts of the Black Sea in one single individual, about 8,000 years ago.

The gene does not "make" blue in the iris, instead it turns off the mechanism which produces brown melanin pigment. Originally, you see, we all had brown eyes.

Whattyaknow... many of you are family.

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