Re: OT: Mood-reflective eye-colour (WAS: Re: The Melting)

Christophe Grandsire scripsit:

> How can you get purple eyes then? A fourth, extremely rare, pigment?
I doubt it, but I don't know.  The actual origin of the blue and green
colors, BTW, is Tyndall/Rayleigh scattering, same as the blue sky.
An *oversimplified* model of eye-color inheritance is that there are
two genes, "gey" (brown/blue, with brown dominant) and "bey1"
(green/blue, with green dominant).  If gey is set to brown, then
the eyes are brown; otherwise bey1 determines the color.  We know
that this model is incomplete: at least two other genes are involved,
but we don't understand how, and nobody understands the exact mechanism
either.

Anyway, time for me to inflict a sappy song on you all:

        Tell me why the stars do shine,
        Tell me what makes the ivy twine,
        Tel me why the sky's so blue,
        Tell me, oh tell me, why I love you.

        Nuclear fusion makes stars to shine,
        Tropism makes the ivy twine,
        Scattering makes the sky so blue,
        Gonadal hormones are why I love you.

--
John Cowan        http://www.ccil.org/~cowan          jcowan@reutershealth.com
Please leave your values                Check your assumptions.  In fact,
   at the front desk.                      check your assumptions at the door.
     --sign in Paris hotel                   --Cordelia Vorkosigan