If You Have Naturally Curly Hair — DNA Finally Revealed Where It Came From

Is curly hair a rare mutation from one part of the world? Genetics says the real story is stranger, and it may involve your brain. Most people assume curly hair has a single origin. The research points the other way: tightly curled hair looks closer to the ancestral human condition, and straight hair evolved independently at least twice, through unrelated genes, in different parts of the world. In this documentary we follow the evidence from the hair follicle to ancient DNA to a heated mannequin in a wind tunnel. SOURCES - Medland et al., 2009, American Journal of Human Genetics (TCHH and straight hair) - Westgate, Ginger & Green, 2017, Experimental Dermatology (biology and genetics of curly hair) - Fujimoto et al., 2008, Human Molecular Genetics (EDAR and hair thickness) - Kamberov et al., 2013, Cell (EDAR variant in mice) - Mao et al., 2021, Cell (ancient Northeast Asian genomes) - Adhikari et al., 2016, Nature Communications (Latin American hair GWAS, PRSS53) - Liu et al., 2018, Human Molecular Genetics (hair-shape meta-analysis) - Lasisi, Jablonski, Havenith et al., 2023, PNAS (scalp hair as a thermoregulatory adaptation) #CurlyHair #DNA #Genetics #HumanEvolution #AncientDNA #Ancestry #Documentary