Sick of people commenting on ds ginger hair

[woodpops]

I am sick to death of total strangers coming up to me and commenting on my sons ginger hair. Especially if dh (who's also ginger) isn't with me. THey're always asking where the ginger comes from ................ like it's any of their business. I don't want my ds to grow up thinking he's different because of these stupid peoples comments. His hair is beautiful just like him and I wouldn't have him any other way. People don't comment on my dd blonde hair so what gives them the right to comment on my ds????

prettycandles, they're not proper brown, sort of greeny/hazel colour - and huge with very long (red) lashes! Really lovely. I expect his hair will be reddish-brown as an adult.
I'd love to know more about the genetics - I thought hair colour was a bit more complicated than a single gene (according to a red-haired geneticist I know!)

My ds has bright orange hair, and I am always getting comments on it, but I was staggered to find out from this thread that people think red hair is a negative thing. The comments I get are always so nice. In fact where we live red hair is pretty rare, and everyone within about a square mile knows my son and refers to him as "the little redhead" (which sounds friendly and affectionate in Russian) or The little golden boy, or the little sunshine. I've never had a negative comment and I feel really sad that people are negative about it. I've never minded people commenting either.

My dd has white barbie blond hair and people always comment on it, she gets called Goldilocks or Barbie, I don't take it as an insult, I just feel that people comment to make conversation. She loves her hair and I love her hair.

Hi Elliott, your friend is right about hair colour in general, but red hair is actually surprisingly straightforward genetically. The vast, vast majority of people with red hair have mutations in the MC1R gene- lots of different mutations, but all the same gene. There are a very few other genetic causes of red hair, like the POMC gene, but they tend to be associated with endocrine/hormonal abnormalities, and are very rare.
On the other hand, other hair colours are pretty much a mystery genetically, and undoubtedly have complex genetics. There's a fair bit been done on blonde-ness (fair bit, geddit ), but it's more complicated than red hair.

Why does blond hair tend to get darker with age?

And why did my honey blonde hair turn a muddy brown that darkened with every pregnancy?? I was expecting stretch marks but not brown hair!

Pass

And is there a genetic cause of people with one blue eye and one brown eye??? I am sick of year 10s asking me that every time I teach them the oversimplification of eye colour at GCSE! (Note, always ask questions when you have a captive geneticist!!!)

Gulp.

As you'll have guessed, I don't have a scooby. The only thing I can say, which is not answering the question but might serve to distract them for a moment, is that there are cases of females who are heterozygous for colour blindness who are colour blind in one eye. They would normally be carriers with normal vision, but have a non-random pattern of X inactivation so that instead of complete mosiaicism they have inactivated the X chromosome with the wild-type copy of the colour blindess gene in all cells in one eye, presumably through clonal expansion. The other eye has random X inactivation and is thus fine. None of this is relevant unless eye colour genes are also X linked, of course.....

That might buy you a couple of minutes, and then you'll just have to pray for the bell to go

Tamum if I said ' but have a non-random pattern of X inactivation so that instead of complete mosiaicism they have inactivated the X chromosome with the wild-type copy of the colour blindess gene' It would take me to the bell to get it out without tripping over my tongue!!!!

Actually that would made a good discussion with the top set, lower sets would glaze over!

And since I have your attention!

Is there any genetic advantage to carrying the cf gene? It seems to be such a high rate 1:25 for such a damaging mutation if there is no potential advantage to the carrier, cf Sickle Cell.

Or does it just mutate frequently?

Did you ever work on Chromasome 18/19 in Edinburgh? If so I may have met someone that you know.

Sorry, hmb, that wasn't worded very well was it!

The CF question gets asked a lot; I share a lab with a big CF gene therapy group and when they give seminars that's quite a common question. There's been lots of hand-waving about being more resistant to the plague (I think) if you're a CF carrier, but not surprisingly this is hard to test. There is pretty good evidence that there is a protective effect of heterozygosity for the most common mutation, deltaF508, against asthma, but whether this would be enough to allow it to spread in population terms I don't know. There's other stuff about resistance to flu, too. Oh, I could go on and on

I never worked on chromosomes 18 or 19, but I think I know most human geneticists in Edinburgh,so I might know them. Go on, gissa clue!

First name Jenny, maiden name (ithink) was clarke?? Now working as a teacher.....excellent one at that.

sorry to but in and this isnt very scientific but... I was reading in the CF magazine that it has been proven that CF carriers are most likely to have asthma, hayfever, eczema, or some allergy wotsit...just thought I would add that I am just annoyed because my extended family refuse to accept that they may be carriers....ho hum

this is to much of an intellectual chat thread for me anyway

Me too!

Do you have a family history of cf?

And anyway, we all have, if 'white' and British a 1 in 25 chance of being a carrier.

Tamum
And is there mitochondrial DNA in red blood cells??

That's interesting, Fio. Complete opposite to the paper I mentioned- maybe different mutations have different effects on allergy? This is getting way above my head too even though it's my job

Hmb, Fio's sister, who sounds lovely (like Fio)had CF and died in her twenties, so Fio is unfortunately a real expert

As for mitochondrial DNA in red blood cells, yet again I have no idea, but I can't see why not. I'm pretty sure they have mitochondria, so I shouldn't think having no nucleus would affect the mitochondrial DNA

Sorry Fio, I didn't mean to be insensitive.

I was told that if ginger hair appears in a family with no previous ginger members, then in some previous generation two very close family members must have had a child. Old wives tale, or borne out by the genetics?

Old wives tale, I'm afraid. If the gene for red hair was really rare in the population, so that the only chance of getting two copies in one person (and thus getting red hair) was through inbreeding that could be true(ish), but there are loads of carriers of the red hair gene. Infinitely more likely that a carrier happens to have married another unrelated carrier. Here endeth the lesson

I seem to teach a lot of children with ginger hair, so it isn't rare, at least not in Lincolnshire. I also teach one class with two sets of identical twins, which is a laugh and a half! I have problems enough as it is without not knowing which one is which!

Old wives tale, surely - because its recessive and would only appear when two carriers chanced upon each other?
Tamum - would me and dh have to carry the same mutation? And will ds2 definitely be a carrier since he's not a redhead?
Hmmm, I'm stretching my memory of genetics here, really must update sometime!

Tamum: What is the frequency of the red-haired gene being carried by non-redheads in the British population, then?
I really wish that screening for CF genes were widely available to couples. Seems so obvious.

Ah, but I'm not British! Actually, I am, just not English. DH is as English as cricket - he's a Yorkshireman - but my mother's family is Polish and my father's family is Romanian. DF is the only ginge in his family, and had never met another redhead until he left Romania.

There seems to be a higher than average incidence of red hair at Catholic schools - what's that about?