Better Red Than Dead
According to a story in National Geographic, redheads are not long for this earth. Not individual redheads, of course: your eccentric aunt or hot girlfriend or the boy at camp who won't go canoeing because he burns will live a long and rewarding life. But redheads as a species are nearly through. The phenomenon, which began thousands of years ago in Europe, originally helped to increase the body's ability to produce vitamin D from sunlight. Now, though, the mutation has outlasted its usefulness and redheads may be extinct within a hundred years. Meanwhile, please enjoy this presentation by Professor Eric Cartman.
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Redheads Going Extinct?
Posted Aug 23rd 2007 1:11PM by Ben Greenman
Filed under: Science, Bizarre
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Mo Rocca appears on a bunch of shows, including CBS News Sunday Morning (with the indescribably wonderful Charles Osgood), The Tonight Show on NBC, and NPR's Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! He's a sometime judge on Iron Chef and was featured on Telemundo's Amore Descarado. Last year he starred on Broadway in the 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. His expose "All the President's Pets" was published by Crown in 2004.
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Reader Comments ( Page 2 of 13)
16. Not if Feria #94 has anything to say about it!
Ashlee at 11:49AM on Aug 24th 2007
17. Lots of red heads in the sand mountain area,lots of males nice big men ,red wont be leaveing in a hunder years here
Ben at 11:53AM on Aug 24th 2007
18. This is not surprising if you know a bit about genetics. And let's not forget that REAL BLONDES will also be
extinct in about 300 years, ít's also a recessive gene.
There IS a bright side to all this! One day, we'll all share mutual skin and hair color - effectively killing off racism (not exactly a beneficial behavior trait). Martin Luther King's words will FINALLY come to pass. People will b judged not by their skin color, but by the content of their character. Seems good to me!
A NATURAL Blonde
AJCW at 2:03PM on Aug 27th 2007
19. I'm going to miss those fire crotches.
fire eater at 3:56PM on Aug 24th 2007
20. Are you saying all redheads will spontaneously combust before reaching breeding age? Or is there a plan to screen for carriers of the "redhead" gene and sterilize them?
If not, how will they vanish in a single generation?
It's just retarded.
bill voll at 9:47AM on Aug 25th 2007
21. I'm still waiting for a retraction of this bogus article
kevin at 5:23PM on Aug 24th 2007
22. I am a natural redhead with ivory skin so I burn in the sun! It peels and I'm ivory again! I hated being a redhead when I was a kid but now I love it! Definitely an attention-getter ... and the only color that comes into contact with my hair is a little Miss Clairol to cover the gray and the occasional honey highlight! Otherwise, it's all about RED!!
Sonja at 6:52PM on Aug 24th 2007
23. My grandpa was a redhead, my grandma had auburn hair, my mom and her younger brother are redheads but my aunt was a blonde, who has 1 redhaired daughter , *I* am a redhead with brown eyes, my ex-husband's (he was blonde), 2 sisters and brother are and both of MY kids are redheads with beautiful blue eyes. I don't think that redhead gene is going ANYWHERE!
Proud to be a *Ginger* LOL!
dlm at 7:21PM on Aug 24th 2007
24. This is just a symptom of a bigger issue. Full blooded white people are also becoming extinct. In 1900, about a third of the world's people were white. Today, that figure is about 15 percent. In a century, it will be down to 3percent. This is ominous, because civilization, especially liberal ideas, were invented by white people.
amren2006 at 7:37PM on Aug 28th 2007
25. someone said to me once: I'd rather be dead than read in the head.
betty at 7:52AM on Aug 25th 2007
26. I love redheads, I just ate two for lunch. All my friends eat redheads. What scares me is if all my friends friends eat redheads ....maybe they will go exinct.
Then who will we eat?
MarkR at 12:21AM on Aug 25th 2007
27. Don't be ignorant. Kirsten Dunst is not a redhead. Red hair comes with light skin, and a myriad of different shades of red color. If you see someone with magenta colored hair, or all one color hair, they are NOT a redhead. I think the article is ridiculous, speculative, and inflammatory. Where is the number-crunching, hard, statistical data?
Mary at 10:29AM on Aug 25th 2007
28. I guess that's possible. Those of you who are responding to this 'OMG NO! My (*insert relative*) has red hair, that CAN'T BE TRUE!'
If you think about it, the theory is that they'll disappear in the next HUNDRED years. That doesn't mean they'll be gone tommorow, or the next day. It makes logical sense that now the earth is in the 'warming up' phase of its temperature cycle, it would make sense that those with special mutations that are designed for getting more sun would slow decline in numbers. Think, people, think.
teh.werf at 6:49AM on Aug 31st 2007
29. Come and visit the beautiful state of PA. We have loads of redheads here.
Amber at 12:29PM on Aug 25th 2007
30. I'm a redhead, always had to wear a t-shirt over my suit to swim lessons as a child. Grew up with the "Rather be dead than red on the head; Hey, let's play connect the dots with your freckles; If all your freckles ran together, you'd have a great tan; etc... But now, years after begging the friends, the sun worshippers, to go to the swimming lake early enough to get a tree to sit under, Ha! They all look like shoe leather and about 10 years older than their years, instead of 15 years younger. Now, that's Karma!
Betty Jo at 4:21PM on Aug 25th 2007