Lifespan: up to 20 years in captivity, 5-10 years in the wild.
Redheads are here to stay and should be around well beyond 2060. The story of redhead extinction has gone around the internet before, with news articles again citing the Oxford Hair Foundation as a source. These articles work on the mistaken assumption that recessive genes — like the one for red hair — can "die out."
So, the answer to our question 'are redheads going extinct? ' is no. Redheads are less common and blue-eyed-left-handed-redheads are particularly rare, but they're not endangered and they won't die out due to that MC1R recessive gene.
REDHEADS are significantly less likely to age badly.
According to their findings, those who carry a variation of the MC1R gene responsible for red hair, look around two years younger than they actually are.
Estimates on the original occurrence of the currently active gene for red hair vary from 20,000 to 100,000 years ago. A DNA study has concluded that some Neanderthals also had red hair, although the mutation responsible for this differs from that which causes red hair in modern humans.
Redheads probably won't go grey. That's because the pigment just fades over time. So they will probably go blonde and even white, but not grey.
So what does that all mean for your chances of having a red-headed child? Since you need two pieces of “red hair” DNA to have red hair, your child will only have red hair if they receive “red hair” DNA from both parents. Even if you don't have red hair, you can still pass on a red hair allele to your child!
In the array of possible natural hair colors, dark hues are the most common — more than 90 percent of people worldwide have brown or black hair. That's followed by blonde hair. Red hair, occurring in just 1 to 2 percent of the population, is the least common.
A McGill University study found that redheads could handle more electric shocks than those with different coloured hair. Other research discovered that gingers are better at handling stabbing or sharp pain.
A new survey reported by the Daily Mail says ladies should start worrying in their 30s: specifically, ages 30, 32, and 35 (for redheads, brunettes, and blonds, respectively).
Some studies indicate that redheads are more prone to illness because they prefer to keep out of the sun and so lack vitamin D, or because their ability to absorb the vitamin is less efficient.
Put simply, 'achromotrichia' is defined as the absence or loss of pigmentation in the hair. Thanks to genetics, gingers tend to retain their red hair colour for a lot longer, skipping out the greying stage that most other people experience.
While redheads are born all throughout the world, they're more likely to crop up in the Northern hemisphere. Though about 1-2% of the general world population has the red hair gene, that percentage rises to 2 to 6 percent north of the equator.
Researchers think that the ginger gene, known as MC1R, may cause the temperature-detecting gene to become over-activated, making redheads more sensitive to the cold.
Why do people sometimes appear to be younger than others of the same age? The culprit turns out to be an innocent-sounding gene, MC1R, responsible for producing, among other things, locks of fetching red hair as well as pale skin, researchers have discovered.
it is estimated that there may only be around 1 to 3 million people with both red hair and green eyes.
Redheads (men and women) differ chemically from the rest of us in that they can't make melanin (the brown pigment in freckles and tans). Instead, they make pheomelanin, which is reddish. Their sweat doesn't differ in composition from anyone else's, so there is no reason for them to smell different.
gingerphobia (uncountable) (UK, informal) Fear, dislike, or hatred of people with red hair.
About 1–2% of people of European origin have red hair. Especially female redheads are known to suffer higher pain sensitivity and higher incidence of some disorders, including skin cancer, Parkinson's disease and endometriosis.
Rarest kind of redhead
Having red hair and blue eyes is the rarest hair/eye color combination possible. The odds of a person having both of those recessive traits is around 0.17%. Instead, most redheads have brown, hazel or green eyes, according to Medical Daily.
People with red hair are more likely to be left-handed.
Recessive traits often happen in pairs so commonly people with the gene for red hair also possess the trait for left-handedness.
If both parents are ginger, their offspring would be ginger. Reason: We inherit half our chromosomes for our father (23) and half from out mother (23), 46 in total. If both parents passed on a ginger 'infected' hair colour chromosome, the child would be ginger.
Previous studies had shown that redheads inherit two versions of the MC1R gene that leads to red hair – one from their mum and one from their dad. Although almost everyone with red hair has two copies of the red-haired version of MC1R, not everyone carrying two red-haired versions is a redhead.
Most (natural) redheads will have brown eyes, followed by hazel or green shades.