Re: Silverbacks

A.G.McDowell wrote:

In article <sehix-10965A.22200521082008@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Steve Hix
<sehix@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes
In article
<546d92bb-9341-4023-9d23-6318c741247f@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
"nuny@xxxxxxx" <Alien8752@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Aug 21, 3:18 pm, Howard Brazee <how...@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Why do mammals hair turn white as they get older?

Um, snow camouflage for Protectors?*

It's not a certain age - but closer to a certain percentage of
their >> > life-spans.

Several of my wife's uncles and aunts didn't show any gray in their
hair until their early '60s, or even later. (They're asian.)

My hair started going gray when I was 13 or 14. Irish background is
most likely why.

Pretty wide spread for "certain percentage".
An uncle of mine with ancestors in the north of Scotland had jet black
hair until he was quite old. Since my hair started turning grey before
thirty I am quite jealous, except when I remember that my uncle also
had a nervous breakdown, quite possibly because loads of people who
came to him with problems expected him to have the stamina and vigour
of a man twenty years younger.

I suspect that it's just one more thing that never got fixed by
natural selection because something - maybe just skimping on protein
or calories - was more important. My hair was nearly blond as a
child, was once a brown dark enough to pass as black, and is now
mostly grey with just enough dark hair to show that the grey is from
age.

Mine was definitely blond, and then turned deep black.

If evolution was going to darken anything there, I would expect
it to darken the blond hair of childhood first.



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