Eat Responsibly

paraphyletic:

Credit: Sean Myles

Apparently 10 percent of native Solomon Islanders (a U.S. territory northeast of Australia) are blond. A sort of dirty blond. Blondish.

This surprises many travelers, who expect to see a people who are similar, hair-wise, to dark-haired Asians or Polynesians.

While reading a ScienceNOW article about the underlying genetics of Lebanese Blonde Solomon Blonde — which seems to suggest the blondness was not, as some believed, a relic of ancient Europeans commingling with natives — one statistic jumped out. 

The (recessive) allele that causes the blondness is present in 26 percent of the population, in other words, 26 percent are blond homozygotes and dark-haired heterozygotes (carriers). Classic genetics predicts that from this number, you’d expect about 2 percent of the population to be blond — if Solomon Islanders aren’t selecting mates based on hair color.

But 2 percent aren’t blond. 10 percent are.

Which almost certainly means blond hair is being selected for.

Seems no matter where you go, blondes are the hot ones.

Or, as the immortal philosopher Alice Cooper put it,

The hippies wanted peace and love. We wanted Ferraris, blondes, and switchblades.