Did you fall asleep in the back of biology class or what? Don’t you remember Gregor Mendel, the Austrian monk and his pea plants? Mendel was considered to be the Father of Genetics, and if you were listening in high school instead of shooting spitballs, you might remember his round and wrinkled pea pods and the simple laws of inheritance. Unfortunately, these simple laws don’t apply to eye color.
The common assumption that is taught in schools is that brown eye color is always dominant to blue, and that two blue-eyed parents will always produce a blue-eyed child. This is not always true. Two blue-eyed parents can produce children with brown eyes. This happens because eye color is determined by many genes (polygenic) rather than by one.
Eye color is determined by the amount of a pigment called melanin that is in the iris of the eye. Brown eyes have a lot of pigment, and blue eyes have very little. The eye color genes control enzymes that direct the amount of melanin in the iris.
Although eye color is assumed to remain constant over the course of your entire life, this too can change. Eyes can change color as an individual ages or as the result of some diseases. Eye color can also change from trauma, and sometimes there are drug-induced changes that can occur from the treatment of glaucoma.
By Mark Leyner
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"Is eye color genetic?" was posted on Thursday, November 8th, 2007 at 11:00 am.
That was an interesting article about eye color. I really thought that two blue eyes parents will always generate blue eyed children. Wow, no wonder why blue and green eyes are so desirable these days when looks matter so much more than they used to.
I did see this website though called http://newcoloriris.com that talked about a surgery that allows people to change their eye color. It’s really interesting. It was meant for people who suffered from albinism, but now is geared as a plastic surgery as well.
Again, great article. Really interesting information.
Thanks,
Richard
I had the procedure done. Its only 15 minutes and painless. I wore color contacts for over 8 years and felt terrible knowing thy where not my real color eyes. Now I wake up in the morning and still have blue eyes. This surgery truely changed my life. Im very much happy. Money cannot buy how I feel.
How is eye color determined?