(no subject)

[xp_roulette]

In honor of the approximately 35 redheads running around here, and because I got bored the other day, I present these fun facts:

Did you know that.....?

-Scarlet tresses were long considered the mark of the devil: because the color was associated with menstruation, red-haired women were seen as unclean and taboo

- Believed to be lethal, fat taken from a redheaded man was used in concocting poisons during the seventeenth century

- Both Emily Dickenson and Edna St. Vincent were redheads.

- Redheads require 20 percent more anesthesia to put them under than brunettes or blondes.

- Less than 4 percent of the world's population has red hair (and about 3 percent of them live here)

- Also, in Africa, non-Caucasian albino redheads who live in countries like Cameroon, are subject to ill treatment by superstitious neighbors

Comments

Well...

[x-madelyn.livejournal.com]

Red hair is a recessive gene, so it's possible it is connected to mutation. Genetics aren't really my field, so I'll leave the explanation to Jean or Hank. *grins* But I will observe that two of the redhead collection aren't mutants - maybe something about this place attracts the singular?

Personally, mine tends to shift to almost-blonde in summer if I don't spend all my time inside, and darkens to brownish red in winter. I think it's just trying to be cool. ;)

Re: Well...

[x-crowdofone.livejournal.com]

Maybe the school was built on an ancient redhead burial ground. :)

My dad's hair used to go almost white in the summer, when he was little--I got into Grandpa's blackmail stash once. 'Course, it's lightening again now, but I tend to think that's more my fault. ;)

Re: Well...

[x-jeangrey.livejournal.com]

I'm still not convinced that the x-gene is recessive, and there's not enough statistical evidence on second and third generation to be really conclusive in any direction. The fact that mutations spring up in families with no prior evidence of such mutations would suggest that it is, but almost all of the children of mutants I've encountered also turn out to be x-gene positive, which implies a dominant gene. Statistically, a recesive gene oughtn't show up that often in first generation families, but Scott and Alex, Pitor and Illyana, and Sam, Paige and Jay put paid to that suggestion.