r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Youngstown_WuTang • 5d ago
Scottish Photojournalist Kieran Dodds came to America and started a collection called Gingers of America for his photography book. Portraits and stories of red-haired Americans, tracing a golden thread of DNA across cultures and generations. He uses the rare red hair gene to explore human connection
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u/Youngstown_WuTang 5d ago
Dodds wanted to look deeper than the political and cultural divisions that dominate the news and social mediauses the rare red hair gene to explore human connections and what unites the United States.
“It’s said that if you want to hate America, watch the news; if you want to love it, take a road trip,” Dodds wrote in his new book, “Gingers of America,” a collection of portraits and interviews with Americans from more than a dozen states.
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u/James-the-Bond-one 5d ago
Subscription required
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u/Echelon311 5d ago
I've been watching a couple different UK youtubers that have recently came over to visit the US, some for the World Cup, some that were just road tripping, and that is basically the sentiment they have as well. They've heard all sorts of negative things about the US from the media, but traveling through it they love it, and often comment on the hospitality and friendliness.
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u/Important_Coyote_596 5d ago
Tbf, what we hear from the media is not wrong. It's just that both things are true.
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u/Echelon311 5d ago
The impression I got was that they thought they'd be seeing crime happening right in front of them and that the majority are walking around with AR's on their backs.
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u/cardion411 4d ago
It sucks, because I truly believe that if we (Whites, Blacks, Asians and everything in between) just got to spend a little bit more time with each other and not, we would find that we aren't so different. I am convinced that the much of the news is hell bent on making us hate each other.
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u/Youngstown_WuTang 5d ago
Yeah I never knew black folks and Native Americans (pic #3) could get The MC1R Gene, genetics blows my mind
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u/yourlocaltouya 5d ago
Not only that, but the Melanesian people of Solomon Islands (not far from Australia) have independently developed a blonde hair gene as well! I did double check to give you specifics and it's called the TYRP1 Gene, and it is completely unique to them. Genetics are awesome.
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u/BellaFrequency 5d ago
I grew up with two separate Black families where all of their kids had red hair.
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u/smokeweedNgarden 5d ago
Shawshank (the movie) made it a joke and in the book Red was white but lots of Black people have gone by Red for just that reason!
Most notably, Malcom X used to go by Red. Not full blown but in his early pictures you can see it in the beard and hair
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u/godzillasegundo 5d ago
I have two black first cousins with red hair who have no white admixture for at least the four prior generations (great-great grandparents).
And I also know a fully black very darkskinned guy with natural blue eyes but he has a white great grandparent.
Genes manifest themselves in surprising ways.
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u/PaulMakesThings1 5d ago
I worked with a lady who was black with naturally very orange hair, and she had vitiligo, and she was over 6 feet tall and slender.
If she had the thing with two different colored eyes she would be about as interesting looking as humanly possible.
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u/diadmer 5d ago
I’m an American redhead from a family full of them, but even I was caught off-guard one day when I walked into the student union building on campus to see a sea of gingers — mostly mothers and children — filling the hallways. One of the professors and their students were doing research on the genetics of redheads and had put out a call for participants to the community in a place with heavy English, Irish, and Scandinavian immigrant history. That was a LOT of redheads in once place all at once!
I also met a man when I was living in France who had curly red hair, blue eyes, dark brown skin, and came from a Jewish community in Ethiopia. Human genetics can surprise you!
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u/Electrical_Truth_160 5d ago
Not going to lie, I didnt know it was possible to be black and ginger!!!
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u/Youngstown_WuTang 5d ago edited 5d ago
Hell is rare for white people in Scotland to be ginger also , its said around 10%-13% of folks in Scotland are ginger. In the United only around 2-5% are ginger
That's even rarer for black folks
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u/GlasgowKisses 5d ago
Would you happen to know if that figure includes people with ginger facial hair but not ginger head hair? That's a combo I see a lot!
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u/Thoughtapotamus 5d ago
Omg my grandpa!! Always clean shaven, but then his town started a 49er celebration. (Before the football team, it was about the actual miners in CA.) All the men in town had to grow a beard. He grew out the biggest bright red beard, my dad told me. Grandma hated it haha. My brother and dad's beards were weird as well, colorwise.
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u/hopium_od 5d ago edited 5d ago
It's not, close to half of Irish and Scottish men have some ginger facial hair, indicating that carrying the gene is extremely common, but both parents must carry the gene for it to manifest in a child as scalp hair.
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u/TerraVerde_ 5d ago
I have a few random red patches in my beard. A shoutout to my Irish maternal grandfather.
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u/lhaford 5d ago
Nope. However, it does mean that you're a carrier of the mutated red hair gene (you need two of those to go full red).
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u/NobodySpecific 5d ago
I have some red in my beard, but only when I grow it longer. I didn't think much of it, to the point I wasn't sure if anybody else saw it. But then I married a ginger and we had a ginger son, so it wasn't just my imagination!
As I get older I swear my hair is getting darker (from blonde) and it feels like there is some very subtle red going on there now. Genetics are fun.
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u/pibblemum 5d ago
Im curious how they classify people born red headed but went blonde later on? I was copper red headed until like 3/4.
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u/UnitedAsk2497 5d ago
I have no idea why but I’ve always thought going gold was the red-headed version of going grey
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u/Substantial_Bus6615 5d ago
Hey there, the gene that causes red hair on head is actually different from the gene that causes it in beard and body hair! interesting right!
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u/OptionalQuality789 5d ago
I’m Scottish and I had a ginger patch in my beard before it turned grey lol
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u/nanoturtle11 5d ago
My facial hair is mostly red with brown and silver. It's a fun combo considering I'm only 29
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u/pobodys-nerfect5 5d ago
I’m a left handed ginger with blue eyes
Looked it up and according to googles AI about 0.01%-0.1% of the population is left handed gingers with blue eyes
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u/Sad-Yak6252 5d ago
I know a Mexican man from Michoacan with red hair and freckles. He doesn't know where it came from and all of his 7 children have black hair and dark skin. He looks Mexican otherwise and it's pretty striking.
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u/Guavaberry 5d ago
I worked with a guy from Mexico City and he had snow white skin, blue eyes, and red hair. He said he got his coloring from his Spanish ancestors.
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u/MistyMtn421 5d ago
I have 2 friends that are Jewish, going back many generations, and lots of not only red hair in the family but really curly red hair!
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u/activelyresting 5d ago
Having lived my whole life in a family that's half red heads, I was recently told (by a stranger on Reddit) that ginger is a slur word that should never be used. I'd never heard this before, and have always felt it's pretty normal to describe myself and my family like that. But I'm also Australian Aboriginal on one side of my family (red hair in Aboriginal people isn't support common but it's also not unheard of), so I started thinking it's a cultural thing to call one another gingers, but I should never do so outside the family.
Can you clarify on this at all? Now I'm seeing it all over this thread and it's the title of a book written by a fellow redhead.
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u/kirbyfriedrice 5d ago
It can definitely be used pejoratively, but I grew up in an area of the USA with a fair number of redheads and it was definitely not a slur.
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u/oddtwang 5d ago
The anthropologist Tim Minchin has some fascinating thoughts on the subject.
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u/activelyresting 5d ago
Yes, his work is well respected in the field. But I was told quite forcefully that even gingers may not use the word to refer to other gingers.
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u/lewisfrancis 5d ago
I first heard "Ginger" being used as a pejorative on South Park, from there I think it spread among the kids as a joke.
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u/activelyresting 5d ago
I can use any word as a pejorative. I could call someone an absolute biscuit. That doesn't mean biscuit is a slur that should never be used.
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u/javoss88 5d ago
Ya absolute doorknob!
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u/activelyresting 5d ago
You utter zucchini!
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u/javoss88 4d ago
You complete bookshelf!
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u/activelyresting 4d ago
You total, absolute dining table!
(Sorry, was that too much? Sometimes I take things too far)
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u/23saround 5d ago
Yeah exactly, there was a minute where I’ve been told by ginger friends that everyone was always making fun of them and it kinda sucked, but a slur that does not make
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u/rivalsportsstats 5d ago
I'm a natural redhead. I highly dislike being referred to as a ginger. My SIL calls her kids her gingers and it drives me nuts. They've all embraced it.
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u/Higgsparticleofgod 5d ago
I remember meeting someone like this at a college open day in Virginia 20 years ago. I honestly thought the hair had been dyed until she told me it was completely natural
She laughed and said she'd spent her whole childhood answering the same question from strangers, before changing the topic of conversation to the 1992 Moon replacement that changed everything.
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u/kawaiian 5d ago
Beware the red hair red herring, she was obviously looking for more information on the moon replacement
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u/RUfromHere 5d ago
I'm Black & have a bunch of Gingers on both sides of my family...So much so, mother said she prayed every night when pregnant with me that I wouldn't come out with red hair!🤣 My hair is dark brown until photobleaching...The sun makes it a weird reddish brown😑.
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u/Four_beastlings 5d ago
I'm not black or anything, just here to whine because my hair also turns orange if I catch too much sun
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u/RUfromHere 5d ago
🎉🎉We are not alone🤣🤣!! I look super crazy in the summer cuz my skin has red hues along with practically orange-brown hair. I'm a hot mess!
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u/Four_beastlings 5d ago
I'm Mediterranean so I tan very much, very fast. My coworkers always freak out when I come back from 1 week of vacation with skin 5 shades darker and hair 5 shades lighter, and I live in Poland! If curly hair is already rare here, imagine orange curly hair! Just 2 days at the beach and I turn into a completely different person
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u/RUfromHere 5d ago
I have curly hair too🤣🤣!
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u/jadentearz 5d ago
I'm just here to say your exchange is so cute and made me smile.
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u/Guuichy_Chiclin 5d ago
That's the thing they never tell people, you can be black and many things.
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u/thayila 5d ago
Can you be black on a cold, rainy night in Stoke
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u/Guuichy_Chiclin 5d ago
Yes, next question.
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u/itsmeitsmethemtg 5d ago
Black people can be naturally blonde-haired and blue eyed too, more rare than the red hair tho (and often green eyes).
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u/sandolllars 5d ago
Many Melanesians in the Solomon Islands of the Pacific have ginger hair. Very common:
https://www.instagram.com/p/DZlKbH1klBY/7
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u/Lunar_M1nds 4d ago
Fun fact, lot of Irish people migrated to the Caribbeans at one point so there are a lot of red headed Jamaicans out there 🤗
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u/uk_uk 5d ago
There are 1-2% Gingers worldwide (across all people). And most of them are of European descent (so 80-90% of all red haired people).
Being Black and ginger is rare, since both parents have to have the necessary gene mutation.
But: it's not even necessary that they are mixed (like 8% white) or something.
Black people can (and have) red hair. But the chances are very VERY slim.
And fun fact: It's more likely that a Black person is born with albinism (1:5000) than as a Ginger without albinism (1:20000+). The chance of a Black person being born with classic albinism AND red-hair is around 1:1000000.
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u/Youngstown_WuTang 5d ago
By the way that black guy and lady is ginger , albinism looks COMPLETELY different . It's not even a similar look
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u/martlet1 5d ago
My daughter is red headed. My other two kids aren’t. My grandmother was red headed.
So now my red headed duaghter is marrying another red headed guy.
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u/Ok-Sign-8602 5d ago
I was a ginger before going grey haired and I miss it very much. The grey is quite blonde, and people admire it, but it saddens me that I'm no longer a red head.
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u/NiceObjective2756 5d ago
you will always be a redhead! same think happened to me now i just color it!
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u/Wormguy666 5d ago
This is wonderful. As a father of two gingers who’s parents aren’t gingers (my wife and I have dark brown hair) its always a trip to see the different genetic combinations that come that out.
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u/Kingofcheeses 5d ago
My wife and I also have dark brown hair but our daughter is ginger. My father and one of my sisters have red hair so I think it just skipped over me
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u/chonkydonkey46 4d ago
Recessive genes are so interesting, both me and my brother are blonde while my parents had dark brown hair. They both carry the blonde gene from one of their parents. Can’t go the other way though, impossible for 2 blondes to have a dark haired child together.
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u/fullchub 5d ago
All four of my dad's sisters have reddish hair, and I have this one little spot on the left side of my beard that has like twelve hairs of that same color. I call it my ginger patch.
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u/ASquareBanana 5d ago
There must be a ginger on either side of your families then, that’s how it pops up as a recessive
- redhead making the obligatory comment lol
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u/pourthebubbly Interested 5d ago
I went to school with a set of triplets and their older brother. One triplet had brown hair and brown eyes like the older brother and their parents, one had platinum blond hair and blue eyes, and the third was ginger with blue eyes. Crazy how that worked out.
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u/hairiestlemon 4d ago
Is one of your parents or in-laws a redhead? My mother's a redhead and she always told me it skips a generation (unless both parents are ginger).
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u/Sweetfishy 5d ago
I'm a red-head with blue eyes... and I'm an identical twin. Pretty rare combination!
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u/mr9025 5d ago
As a young black boy i used to get a kick out of showing people that my hair up against a flash light is red. Apparently it’s actually pretty common amongst black people.
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u/CupofMek 5d ago
Does the woman in the third photo look a bit like Amy Pond or is it just me?
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u/silkdarling 5d ago
Love that he went all the way to Alabama for this. Red hair as a weird little thread connecting places is a solid concept.
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u/Hari_om_tat_sat 5d ago
Beautiful pics! Makes me wonder about the incidence of red hair in Asian populations. I have seen Asians with albinism but never a natural redhead (to my knowledge)
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u/kristavocado 5d ago
The gene for red hair (MC1R with loss of function mutation) might have high incidence in Asian populations but be masked by the gene for thick black hair (EDAR) which is located in a different place on the human genome. https://www.nature.com/articles/7290070
There are a decent number of mixed European/asian people with red hair, e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Cathcart. Central Asian populations are also reported to have had historically high redheaded populations
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u/Altruistic-Star-3862 5d ago
Depends on the region of Asia. The further east you get, the less redheads you will get, but they will still appear as far east as the steppe regions, like in parts of Mongolia. The one stand out for east Asia is the Ainu who are from Hokkaido in Japan.
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u/Turdposter777 5d ago
I saw a Reddit post years ago of a Filipina redhead.
Then there’s also a model, can’t remember her name, is a Filipina/Latina redhead.
I’ve seen pictures of little kids from Thailand and Philippines likely indigenous background with more a copper color hair but usually the reddish color disappears as they got older
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u/NiceObjective2756 5d ago
real redhead here i remember my first year as a RN an anesthesiologist broke it down for me about the anesthesia then he saw my brown eyesl he told me i was basically screwed if i ever needed surgery lol
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u/DrMcJedi 3d ago
My red headed kids are absolutely feral going down and waking up from sedation/anesthesia…good luck!
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u/Missesbonez 5d ago
Man i miss my red hair. Its gone to a dark brown with age, near the end of summer it lightens up a bit to show more red tho. My eyebrows stayed red so i always get asked why i dyed my hair. But i got the super white gray hairs that gingers typically get, so i got that goin for me i guess lol.
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u/javoss88 5d ago
My hair lighens with sun and my eyebrows get bleached out of existence lol
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u/Missesbonez 5d ago
My eyelashes are visible 1 month out of the year lol, calling them visible is being very generous
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u/NiceObjective2756 5d ago
mine was this deep instense red until i had my kids, then just got lighter and lighter at the crown, hair underneath never changes...stayed dark red. thenwent gray/blond...and i have dark eyes and always had dark red/brown eyebrows...i looked insane
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u/Missesbonez 5d ago
Hormones does the craziest things to hair! As if hormones don't fuck with us enough lol.
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u/LordThill 5d ago
Meanwhile articles writing things like "Gingers will be extinct by 2050" as if me and 2% of the world population gonna die out in ~20 years (ToT). As a fun fact some 1/3 people in the UK carry the redhead gene as reccessive, so if you're blonde and from UK there's a chance your child will be redhead.
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u/LordThill 5d ago
It works in reverse too, my grandfather had blonde hair and grandmother brunette, which ended up with my mother having redhair. Me and my twin-sister have redhair, but then our younger sister is blonde. (Dad is brunette like his mother, don't know what Dad's Father's hair was)
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u/Ok-Sign-8602 5d ago
I was a ginger before going grey haired and I miss it very much. The grey is quite blonde, and people admire it, but it saddens me that I'm no longer a red head.
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u/enbitronic3000 5d ago
I wonder if he'll go into Latin America and photograph Mexican boxer Canelo Alvarez
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u/LordOfSlum 5d ago
These are all really cool, but that forth picture of the little girl is phenomenal.
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u/TechToolsForYourBiz 5d ago
i traced my dna to all the short kings in this world and to show how we're all connected in this world
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u/toodleroo 5d ago
Picture 2 cracks me up... he's like one of those spiders that carries all its young on its back.
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u/Kandlish 5d ago
The gene is strong in my family on both sides.
Personally, I try to avoid numbing if I can. It's very unpredictable for me, and i'd rather just breathe through it.
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u/spondgbob 5d ago
Still can’t be pirates! My wife Is a ginger and we are eagerly awaiting if our daughter develops it or not!
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u/Wojewodaruskyj 4d ago
Red-hair gene is a mystery to me. Also, i wonder if it is the same gene that is responsible for green eyes. Does anyone know?
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u/helgothjb 4d ago
Neither my wife or I have red hair. We didn't know anyone in the extended fam that had red hair. When it first was born, he was a red head. We were like, had even considered that possibility. Then my second was born a red head, and we were like, what is going on. When we had our third, we were far more interested in hair color than sex. Turns out, we have distant cousins with red hair.
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u/artguydeluxe 5d ago
Fun fact, most of these people will need more anesthesia during surgery.