DailyDirt: Don't Make My Brown Eyes Blue!

Eye color isn't a simple single gene trait. In a rare 1% of the population, some people have two different colored eyes or eyes with multiple colors (aka heterochromia iridum. Most people have brown eyes, but it's easy to change your eye color with contact lenses to any color you want -- even scary unnatural monster eyes. Eye color doesn't seem to have much meaning -- as long as you don't teach kids otherwise -- but genetic studies will probably find some interesting correlations in the future.

• DNA analysis of ancient humans can determine eye color from 24 locations on the human genome. As long as enough DNA remains to be analyzed, researchers can determine hair and eye color for specimens that are hundreds of years old. [url]
• About 17% of the world's population has blue eyes, and if you don't like contact lenses to change your eye color -- you can turn your brown eyes blue with lasers. There's actually no blue pigmentation for blue eyes, so a laser ablation technique can remove brown pigments and change a person's eye color permanently. [url]
• All blue-eyed people have a single, common ancestor who lived about 6,000-10,000 years ago. Originally, everyone had brown eyes. [url]

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