Evo-Ed: History, Genetics, and Human Skin Color 

One of my favorite lesser known facts is that the Inuits of the Alaska/Canada/Greenland have dark hair and eyes and didn’t need to adapt lighter hair and eyes because their marine diet has a lot of vitamin D

Excellent video. A small correction: according to the latest genetic data,the first Europeans had dark skin.Eventually, during the Mesolithic, they developped blue eyes, but their skin remained dark until the arrival of the neolithic farmers

That's a highly simplified yet precise gist on a complex topic. I would also like it to have the topic of how even the appearances(facial, physical, cranial) changed across the people with different skin colors and whether or not it had something to do with intermixing with other human species such as neanderthals and denisovans etc.

I love how you (basically) mentioned we are all one human species. Skin color doesn't matter, it never has and it is something to celebrate our heritage, our ancestry. Great video and I love your shirt.

That was pretty informative! Now the goal is to convince those that think they are something special how special we all are.

Good video. I think it’s important to note that that larger population of humans who stayed in Africa continued to diversify genetically.

This is one of the better comments sections on RU-vid lol great video !

Excellent video! Simplified for the simple!

Amazing. You unleashed so much scientific facts and revealed so much information in such a short video. And ended with such thoughtful phrase or how important and at same time how skin deep skin colour is. Great job!🎉

At the same time, they collected blood samples for genetic studies. They sequenced more than 4 million single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs)-places where a single letter of the genetic code varies across the genomes of 1570 of these Africans. They found four key areas of the genome where specific SNPs correlate with skin color. The first surprise was that SLC24A5, which swept Europe, is also common in East Africa-found in as many as half the members of some Ethiopian groups. This variant arose 30,000 years ago and was probably brought to eastern Africa by people migrating from the Middle East, Tishkoff says. But though many East Africans have this gene, they don’t have white skin, probably because it is just one of several genes that shape their skin color. The team also found variants of two neighboring genes, HERC2 and OCA2, which are associated with light skin, eyes, and hair in Europeans but arose in Africa; these variants are ancient and common in the light-skinned San people. The team proposes that the variants arose in Africa as early as 1 million years ago and spread later to Europeans and Asians. “Many of the gene variants that cause light skin in Europe have origins in Africa,” Tishkoff says. The most dramatic discovery concerned a gene known as MFSD12. Two mutations that decrease expression of this gene were found in high frequencies in people with the darkest skin. These variants arose about a half-million years ago, suggesting that human ancestors before that time may have had moderately dark skin, rather than the deep black hue created today by these mutations. These same two variants are found in Melanesians, Australian Aborigines, and some Indians. These people may have inherited the variants from ancient migrants from Africa who followed a “southern route” out of East Africa, along the southern coast of India to Melanesia and Australia, Tishkoff says. That idea, however, counters three genetic studies that concluded last year that Australians, Melanesians, and Eurasians all descend from a single migration out of Africa. Alternatively, this great migration may have included people carrying variants for both light and dark skin, but the dark variants later were lost in Eurasians. To understand how the MFSD12 mutations help make darker skin, the researchers reduced expression of the gene in cultured cells, mimicking the action of the variants in dark-skinned people. The cells produced more eumelanin, the pigment responsible for black and brown skin, hair, and eyes. The mutations may also change skin color by blocking yellow pigments: When the researchers knocked out MFSD12 in zebrafish and mice, red and yellow pigments were lost, and the mice’s light brown coats turned gray. “This new mechanism for producing intensely dark pigmentation is really the big story,” says Nina Jablonski, an anthropologist at Pennsylvania State University in State College. The study adds to established research undercutting old notions of race. You can’t use skin color to classify humans, any more than you can use other complex traits like height, Tishkoff says. “There is so much diversity in Africans that there is no such thing as an African race.” www.science.org/content/article/new-gene-variants-reveal-evolution-human-skin-color

Thank you. Even with a PhD in cell biology I struggle to express the core principles of evolution as meaningfully as you do here. You present the relevant facts without bombarding your audience with a bunch of extra gobbledygook. Again, thank you.

Scientists at the University of Oxford have applied computer modelling to thousands of ancient and modern genomes to create a vast family tree showing how individuals across the world are related to each other, and from where they originated. It suggests that everyone is partially related to a group of hominids who lived in north-east Africa more than a million years ago. It even points to a grid reference: 19.4N, 33.7E, a small area of Sudan.

Let this be the teaching in schools in the west and Asia

Very Good information about Human's body colour how its change in Evolution and still changing 👍

I needed that, watched several long videos and didn't get the jist, now I do!

It’s suggesting humans adapt to the country’s shade/ skin tone where they’re from

Simplified is an understatement thank you for your video

Extensive research across many disciplines. Final presentation very good, full of facts but without clutter.

This is the best explained video on this topic I have ever seen. Thanks so much for an easy yet fun, interesting and informativ video! :D Keep up the good work! :D

What about eye and hair colour compared to skin and latitude?

How you explain the change of chape of eyes, hair etc.

I naturally knew this already without no one teaching me, it just felt like common sense

Yet it also carries the weight of atrocities that humans have perpetuated across millennia. Now that was the point. Knowledge of self Bravoo

This was a fun video!

Excellent.. informative.. factual... well presented!! Keeps you watching... All around.. outstanding job! 5 stars. Keep up the research!

Very good information. What about everything else, like face shapes, facial features, body shapes, human height? we are so physically different from each other. It is not just about skin color.

Great video, thank you

This was beautiful

What colour were Neanderthals? Did mixing with th we m influence skin colour of humans?

Keep it up. Excellent stuff.

Great and very informative video, just a suggestion, try to look in the camera sometime, its been a bit uneasy.

Great video

THANK YOU for a technically sound, informative and scientific evaluation of what makes us all different- essentially nothing, we are not different, we are all the same biologically. Yes, there are some gene differences, height, fat deposition, body proportions, eye colour, hair colour, body hair distribution etc, due to adaptation to cold, food, and similar, however, this happens in populations of animals, but in humans, there is not enough difference to create a subspecies or anything similar. However, humans do manufacture culture, and linked to that, religion and it is that which determines our different negative behaviours to each other, colour is just a useful tool for people to use to highlight different cultural norms and then judge other cultures based on our internally generated views of the world, eg cannibalism, child brides, FGM etc. We are just all the same, let's just get on with working together and stop finding fault in anyone who is not our colour. Culture is a different thing though. Great video.

Than what about the specific features associated with those skin colors huh

finally youtube is suggesting me some good content.

Love the karyotype map tat 👍🏼.

I am not against the idea of human adaptation to environmental determinants. However I am curious to understand why indigenous populations around the equator share different skin tones and hair types. Should they not share the same characteristics?

Keep working hard... Love and support from India

Very good video simplistically explaining the genetics of skin colour but why do the natives in the Arctic and North America still have brown skin? Also skin colour isn't just skin deep, along with skin colour there are drastic differences in facial features and other distinguishable phenotypes denoting various races and ethnic groups.

I have heard so many different stories over the years. It's still interesting nonetheless.

i wonder if there are also scientific explanations on how the evolution and other geographical patterns influenced the body hair and color.

There was also another migration from the Middle East to North India which explains the lighter tone to the south where there was a direct migration from Africa.

Some says homo breed with the local species such as neantherdal. Combined gene helps them to adapt local environment

Amazing

I have been searching for something like this for a while! Think I will have to subscribe.

Thank you. I have no scientific background yet I travel extensively and read and study voraciously. It didn’t take much other than thinking and paying attention to location and skin tones to figure out the reason for differences. It was pure common sense. As well as having brain cells. Of course I knew nothing about the scientific information behind it like mutations… that’s easily read to find out. Or watch things like this. But I always knew all human life started in Africa. And how migration changed how ppl look. What sickens me are deniers. Usually religious backed ones who don’t think. And still believe in Adam and Eve and that bull. I stf away from all of those limited eejits. White skin is not superior in any way. Only in the minds of morons.

When I was younger and immature I believed in evolution too. Humans were definitely created.

Very nice video

as an indonesian which located near equator and i have light to medium brown skin color. i asume that my ancestor skin color is like to dark, became brown, walk to little bit north and became light brown, come down and became brown again lol. and make my skin so easy being dark by expose to the sun after some minutes but come back lighter after couple hours.

The oldest bones of modern humans were found in North West Africa (Morocco) and were about 300,000 years ago.

Very few skin can not be change while other skin can be altered by light treatment so some black are not black and white are not white but it is convenience for power grasp

Ur doing good work this will take time but this will go big

This is a wealth of information. Thanks for sharing.

And what about blood types? Thank you for your work.

Nicely put. No doubt here about evolution of humans. Not mentioned here along with skin color is the changes in eye shapes and hair types, as the eastern migrations occurred. Height and breadth is curious to me as well as it too evolved in humans regionally. I'm for science over religion personally, but in your view, do these first humans out of Africa come from the Adam and Eve origin? Where do you think that these first humans in Africa came from?

Very Nice! And informative, it's good to find Content that speaks truth around the origin of man.❤

WOW! VERY COOL AND CONCISE! Actually retained the information 😎

Thanks

How did you get the 120, 000 year migration, specifically? Seems like migrations would have been early and continuous. A group could move across a continent in a few years. Skin color can also change in a few hundred years.

amazing, thx for sharing 😀

Excellent work

Why were the first humans full of melanin in the first place is what I find fascinating. The same Sun that gave Earth so much good, referenced itself in humans. I truly believe we haven't scratched the surface on this issue.

skin and eye color easy to understand, what about the eye shape? what is the reason for far Asia and the rest even in the same sun spectrum have different eye shapes?

How did the skin pigmentations of lighter skin only affect the northern latitude and not the southern latitude in the 10000 year it took the northern melatonin to mutate?

This was interesting but doesnt seem to check out. As some have already mentioned, dark-skinned people inhabited all regions of the world: hunter gatherers like Cheddar Man were as far north as Europe, the San were as far south as southeast Africa, very dark-skinned people first inhabited Asia, including southern India and parts of East Asia, and many Native Americans are also deep dark-skinned - eventhough they crossed northernmost parts of Asia into the Americas. It's also strange that a mutation for pale skin would emerge and proliferate immediately out of Africa in a climate region that's little different. It also seems past time to cease referring to an entire continent of people who carry the highest genetic diversity in the world in such a way that communicates that they are monolithic.

Skin tone was simply an adaptation to the level of exposure to UV-B a group got. Vitamin D is central to understanding the relationship between skin color and geography. There is a geographical pattern between skin color and distance from the equator. At more northern or southern latitudes, the level of UVB rays hitting Earth’s surface decreases due to the planet’s tilt. The equator is bathed year-round in UVB rays, but seasonal variations mean that people in Northern Europe receive virtually no UVB exposure in winters. Humans living near the equator developed darker skin tones, while those in northern climates developed lighter hues. High humidity also decreases UVB levels, as marked by the contrast between skin tones of early humans living in dry equatorial Africa and moist equatorial South America. The dearth of UVB rays in northern climates put positive evolutionary pressure on early migratory humans to ramp up Vitamin D production, skin tone was simply an adaptation to the level of exposure to UV-B a group got. In dark-skinned people, eumelanin is dominant and acts as a natural sunscreen; fairer-skinned individuals have much more pheomelanin.

Can you please do a video explaining leathery skin in central africans and Southern africans. It's protective function protecting the skin from heat not U.V radiation since thats the job of melanin and melanocytes function .

How did they cross oceans? to settle in Australia and Newzeland

It's a really good video. However you had not included Western European hunter gatherers, one of the earliest and most interesting human migration waves in Europe that contributes to current population in the area. They are said to have been dark-skinned or at least not very light-skinned, and were all blue-eyed.

Different groups evolve differently, it's a lot more than skin deep.

Very informative and extremely well presented. If we homo sapiens originated in the African savannah, most likely through some primate evolutionary route, and populated earth by migrations over many thousands of years, I wonder where the Neanderthals originated from? 🤔

Besides the technical terms, this makes better sense than Adam and Eve story

I am brown but I like black people and their culture very much😊

Very thanks for this great video. Why so much other reaserch say the first people of europa were black? I have hear neolitic famrer özie was black too

Don't cry because it's over; smilie because it happened.

Since Neanderthals were already in Europe long before H. Sapiens, what color was their skin? I think this is important, since they interbred to a certain extent. Good video.

You did not mention that Aborigines' from Australia are thought to have been the first human populations in South America but were largely wiped out by advancing Asians, there is a small group left on Islands in south Argentina. The ones in north east Brazil were all overtaken by the Asians.

Its not just in the skin colour, homosapien are subjected to change in physical appearance due to affect of regional climate, gravity and food they are having, and especially we can observe changes in height and facial (nose) structure of people. Main thing we should keep in mind that it's not a over the night thing, these adaptations by human body takes thousands of years to become evolutionary changes in DNA level.

nice video

Tis video is generally good. But there are better videos on this topic that explain that the genetic mutations producing lighter skin or the result of evolutionary pressures that included people migrating to areas where the low exposure to the sun's radiation, and diets that were very low in vitamin D sources. Some of those other videos even show groups of people who maintain their dark skin, even though they lived in areas of low sun exposure, because their diet contained rich sources of vitamin D. Also, the graphics depiction doesn’t represent what we now know from archeology and studies done on genetic material, which revealed the earliest people to inhabit Europe were dark skinned. The skin lightening mutation is relatively recent, evolutionary speaking, as evidenced through genetic tests in recently discovered remains that pointed to dark skinned people with blue eyes in southern Spain, and dark skinned peoples in Britain (because they lacked the genetic markers of later lighter skinned people). IN other words - we're making too big a deal out of something scientifically explained.

2:38 Fascinating video. Though if you're using KITLG as abbreviation for _KIT Lygand Gene,_ you don't need to repeat _gene_ when mentioning it.

I wonder which route people that went to Alaska took the Asian one or the ocean then to North America one

How did hair get straighter and nose pointier in some parts of the world? How did the Asian's eyes get hooded and their nose flatter?

Difference is not only restricted to skin color, but skeleton, digestion, Brain capacity, Disease resistance capacity, so many more things. Again African origin hypothesis is not scientifically established fact, it may also possible that it started at different places

since color is so important to you all, what color was neanderthal ?

It is interesting how they've managed to patch all those holes that negate the validity of evolution and mutation as major catalyst for it!

Cut to the chase, the first humans, originating in Africa were dark skin, considered black by today's standards. After spreading over Africa, they eventually migrated out of Africa, spread across the globe, the farther they got from the equator the less pigmentation they produced to protect them against the suns and their features changed to adapt to the climates, the most extreme and harsh of the climate being in the northern hemisphere creating the most change in appearance. A physical mutation that took tens of thousands of years in the northern hemisphere we now call Europe..... That's it plain and simple.

Nice video, but a little correction, North Africa was populated by light skin arabics maybe 600 to 1000 years ago not 60 thousand years ago.

“Almost certainly had black skin“ BRO DON’T DO THAT JUST SAY THE TRUTH we did have black skin . Go by the science nothing else.

So mysterious

In the Northeast of Brazil, nestled within Serra da Capivara, Piauí, a remarkable discovery was made. An ancient stone instrument, estimated to be 24,000 years old, was excavated. This artifact offers compelling evidence that the North of Brazil was inhabited by humans long before the northern migrations occurred. This significant find was the result of a collaborative research effort between the UFPI Museum of Archaeology and Paleontology and the Université de Paris X Nanterre, conducted under the auspices of the French-Brazilian Mission of Archaeology in Piauí. How do you explain that ?

Perfect 🙆🏻‍♀️. you are one of mostest excellent scholars. 98% 맞음🙆‍♀️ Koreans(NEA) are much more like Uralic & LAPP(sami) peoples than outgroup(afb1b3) =any other Asians genetically by human race 'Cavalli-Sforza phylogenetic trees'(alleles)&Fst.

African have a curly hair. It means that the DNA isn't perfect circle. It has mutations. Probably from Sun radiation. But Japanese and Scandinavian people have a very strait hair. It is perfect DNA circle composition. The question is how African mutated hair turned in non- mutated hair of different remote human groups?

Skin and brains evolved.

i admire and have many personal perceptions of your analysis.

"Race" is a social construct. We are all the same species, just with different appearance mutations. Proof? If a woman from Scandinavia and a man from Zimbabwe hooked up, they would A. Have children and B. The child would carry both parents genetics and traits. Disagree? Okay, If a Native American needed an organ transplant and the donor were an Aborigine from Australia, the transplant would work.

If this is combined with the Haplogroup tracing, it would be good to explain by age. First European Y Haplo is C but extinct now, Then F, R was major influx. By the simple comparison, this F, R descendant could have this mutation. Prevailing Y Haplo in Europe is F ( I, J) and R (R1a/b). However, the explanation in East Asia is simplified. The prevailing East Asia (Including Siberia) Y Haplos are N, O. These are descendant of the H/K then mutated to NO. Currently Notth Eastern India, Yunnan China, Burma (Miyamnar) region. (This point you missed, the group moved to North East (Siberia) from Ukraine region went to back to West again. These group majorly Haplo R) Anyway these 2 groups (NO) moved to North and East have the pale skin, but O moved towards South has not. Conclusion. Skin color is decided mutation and this is caused by latitude.

Skin colour variation is better explained as epigenetic changes, in other words a result of an inherent program that governs gene expression. Epigenetic changes are reversible, that means that light coloured people, if living a sufficient number of generations in a sunny and warm place, eventually evolve darker skin. There are probably other genetic factors involved also, but accidental mutations are probably not decisive.

Mass extinctions have killed us off many times the story is more complex

Please explain Eskimo and Inuits not being pale?