Why Are Europeans White? (E1) - a knol by Frank W Sweet - http://knol.google.com/k...
Dec 15, 2009
from
Paul Buchheit,
April Buchheit,
Mark Trapp,
Joe Beda,
Casey Muller,
Felicia Yue,
Maggie,
vovasty,
Space Cowboy,
Jennifer Taylor,
Mahesh CR,
Will Higgins™,
Private Sanjeev,
maxilprof,
Evan Parker,
no name,
Pavlo Zahozhenko,
and
Micah
liked this
"Too much UV penetrating the skin (too pale-skinned under intense sunlight) increases Vitamin D but reduces folate. Lack of folate causes neural tube defects in the fetus, causing such congenital abnormalities as craniorachischisis, anencephalus, and spina bifida, leading to many miscarriages.
On the other hand, too little UV penetrating the skin (too dark-skinned under dim sunlight) increases folate but reduces vitamin D. Lack of vitamin D causes skeletal neonatal abnormalities (skull, chest, and leg malformations), rickets being the best known. Again, this causes miscarriages.
And so, humans adapt very quickly to solar UV. Prehistoric groups that migrated towards the equator got darker. Prehistoric groups that migrated away from the equator got lighter.
But this explanation fails for Europe. Northern Europeans are lighter than everyone to the south (Mediterraneans), to the east (Mongols and east-Asians), to the west (Native Americans across the Atlantic), and to the North (Inuit, Sammi, Chukchi, Aleut)....When the inhabitants of this region switched to grain about 6 KYA, they suddenly got insufficient vitamin D to survive. They had stopped eating mostly meat and fish in a place where sunlight was too dim to produce vitamin D in normally pigmented skin."
- bob
Scandinavians ate mostly meat and fish, and they are even 'whiter' than average European: not only they were white-skinned, but also blond. This fact ruins article's theory, isn't it? ;)
- Pavlo Zahozhenko
A knol, wow.
- ⓞnor
Could it be that Scandinavians supplement their diet with rice and grains and therefore receive less vitamin D than anyone else at that latitude? They are whiter than the average European primarily because of the sunlight availability which vitamin D from fish does not easily overcome.
- no name
It's too bad that Knol isn't more like Wikipedia where anyone can edit -- I would trust it more ironically.
- Paul Buchheit
Yes, Paul, but is ironic trust what they're really going for here?
- Cliff Gerrish
Blonde people are blonde because of the Gulf Stream. Also, notice that the graphic on the right has been changed in the live Knol. Blonde people are now represented by a light tan rather than blue.
- Kevin Fox
Yeah, I think I read that on Wikipedia...
- Cliff Gerrish
Kevin, are you referring to separate graphics? http://knol.google.com/k... and http://knol.google.com/k... ? I think one is for hair the the other for eye color.
- no name
Paul, I think that open and unrestricted document collaboration works best only when there is a semi-dedicated community of editors to police the content. That exists in Wikipedia, but is hard to replicate elsewhere. Full disclosure: I lead the Knol team and am the majority code contributor.
- no name
I found this article very interesting, and well written to boot.
- Will Higgins™