The Violent History Of Red Hair

My son Henry was born by C-section, his massive skull too much for traditional methods to push through. As the doctor lifted him out of my wife’s open midsection, my eyes were drawn like a magnet to the vibrant, absurd shock of red hair that circled his head. My wife is blonde. I’m a brunette. So Henry’s fiery coif came as a surprise to both of us. We thought it would fade over time, but ten years later, it’s still as flame-bright as ever. Red hair has an unusual attraction. Only two percent of the population has it, typically caused by a mutation in a gene called M1CR that causes hair follicles to express a protein called pheomelanin. The mutation is recessive in about 40% of the population, but when two carriers of the recessive gene make a baby, that baby can express the mutation — that’s what happened with Henry. When we look back into our family trees, we can see red hair popping up here and there, in half-siblings and grandparents, but there’s no rhyme or reason to it. <a href="https://medium.com/omgfacts/the-violent-history-of-red-hair-2c609aa485ac">Read More</a>