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Skin deep, why I'm brown and you wish you were

Discover the genetic basis of skin color and how it shapes identities across cultures and societies.

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A year ago, Armand Leroi, the author of Mutants, wrote:

...We don't know what the differences are between white skin and black skin, European skin versus African skin. What I mean is we don't know what the genetic basis of that is. This is actually amazing. I mean, here's a trait, trivial as it may be, about which wars have been fought, which is one of the great fault lines in society, around which people construct their identities as nothing else. And yet we haven't the foggiest idea what the genetic basis of this is. It's amazing.

Wonder no more Armand! Some have said we are in the golden age of skin color genetics. Nearly 40 years ago quantitative trait loci analysis suggested that 4-5 genes control the variation in skin color which distinguishes Africans from Europeans. And now, new work is pin pointing exactly what those genes of large ...

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