Now I am sure this has been discussed before, what with blue-eyed kids being such head-turners here.
When we had our first kid, I did a bit of research on eye colour, as he was born with quite blue eyes. What I read time and time again was that blue eyes were basically impossible (with the exception of a one-in-a-million mutation) if my wife’s heritage was purely Asian/Chinese. True enough, his eyes turned brown pretty quick, as the blueness was cause purely by a lack of initial pigmentation, which soon developed.
Now our second child has come along, and at 2 months, she still has blue eyes. Today I noticed on the bbc website that a new study has been carried out which knocks previous theory on the head. That would explain why my daughter has blue eyes, but what about all the Chinese/Taiwanese babies? Why would everyone in Taiwan have brown eyes if this study is correct? Could it be that the bit I’ve bolded (“Everyone has two copies of a SNP”) is not true for people of a purely Chinese heritage?
Just curious. I couldn’t care less what colour my kids eyes are, obviously.
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6195091.stm
[quote]Brown and blue
The study, which focused on twins, their siblings and parents, shows - conclusively - that there is no “gene” for eye colour.
THE DNA MOLECULE
Infographic, BBC
The double-stranded DNA molecule is held together by chemical components called bases
Adenine (A) bonds with thymine (T); cytosine(C) bonds with guanine (G)
These “letters” form the “code of life”; there are about 2.9 billion base-pairs in the human genome wound into 24 distinct bundles, or chromosomes
Written in the DNA are about 20-25,000 genes which human cells use as starting templates to make proteins; these sophisticated molecules build and maintain our bodies
Everyone has two copies of a SNP. So there are several possible combinations, some of which are more heavily associated with, for example, blue eyes, than with brown eyes.
In short, these combinations strongly influence the colour of a person’s eyes, but they are not the final word. [/quote]