This is Slow Cooked, a collection of weekly musings, ongoing projects, and the media I’m consuming; delivered every Thursday.
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I was endlessly scrolling through Reels, because its what you do when TikTok is banned in your country. And I stumbled upon this — people with blue eyes can see better at night.
Like, what?
So I dug deeper.
Turns out it is true. It's to do with the lack of pigmentation in the layers of the eye. It also means that bright lights or even sunlight affects them adversely compared to brown eyed folk like me.
It's also why people with blue or green eyes are more likely to have red eyes in photographs taken with flash. Think of it as a bigger reflector for light to bounce off.
(Pro tip: it's easy to avoid red eyes — don't stare into the lens.)
But wait, it gets better.
All blue-eyed humans have a single, common ancestor.
ALL OF THEM.
"The mutations responsible for blue eye colour most likely originate from the north-west part of the Black Sea region, where the great agricultural migration of the northern part of Europe took place in the Neolithic periods about 6,000 to 10,000 years ago," the researchers report in the journal Human Genetics.
Wild.
But here’s why.
“Originally, we all had brown eyes”, said Professor Eiberg from the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine. “But a genetic mutation affecting the OCA2 gene in our chromosomes resulted in the creation of a “switch”, which literally “turned off” the ability to produce brown eyes”.
If you want to get into the weeds, it’s worth the read.
The OCA2 gene codes for the so-called P protein, which is involved in the production of melanin, the pigment that gives colour to our hair, eyes and skin. The “switch”, which is located in the gene adjacent to OCA2 does not, however, turn off the gene entirely, but rather limits its action to reducing the production of melanin in the iris – effectively “diluting” brown eyes to blue. The switch’s effect on OCA2 is very specific therefore. If the OCA2 gene had been completely destroyed or turned off, human beings would be without melanin in their hair, eyes or skin colour – a condition known as albinism.
Research also indicates that women with brown eyes may experience more pain when giving birth — but it isn’t definitive, so don’t take my word for it.
Also, have you noticed the number of idioms that refer to the eye… See eye to eye, in the blink of an eye, apple of eye, keep an eye on, turn a blind eye, bull’s eye, more than meets the eye, catch eye, eye candy… You get the point.
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Thanks for making the time to read this. Today’s newsletter may be elementary knowledge for some, but like me, if you learnt something — yay to us!
See you next week,
Vihan Shah