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THIRTY FIVE ✖ VOICE
So much of what we just accept as a given about our physical characteristics is the direct result of adapting to better fit the environment we live in. Some of it's fairly obvious - having a roughly symmetrical body makes things like movement easier and vision more useful, that sort of thing - but some of the adaptations humans have made since the first homo sapiens was born are a bit more complicated to find specific cause for.
For example, eye color is generally considered a polygenic trait, which means that more than one gene pair is involved, versus just one, but blue eyes are the result of one very specific genetic mutation that occurred less than ten thousand years ago. That means there was one founder mutation that gave rise to everyone in Europe with blue eyes.
The trait spread rapidly across the European subcontinent, and while DNA generally gets shuffled and reshuffled each time a new generation is born, people born with this mutation not only have a remarkable number of other genetic markers in common, but this particular stretch of DNA remains so similar suggests that not only are blue eyes a relatively modern mutation, but also that evolutionarily speaking, the mutation had something to offer, otherwise the rapid spread and preservation of the DNA sequence probably would have been less pronounced and perhaps not even have been preserved to the modern era.
It's next to impossible to know what happened ten thousand years ago that made this trait beneficial to early Europeans, but it did, at some point, apparently have some desirable to offer evolutionarily. [He pauses for a moment, chuckling a little.] Or perhaps early Europeans just found blue eyes attractive.
[Private to Erik]
What do you think of David? [He isn't lying in a heap in a hallway somewhere, is he. :|]
[Private to Merlin]
Have you spoken to Arthur?
[Private to Arthur]
I have a favor to ask.
[Private to Barbara]
Do you have a moment?
For example, eye color is generally considered a polygenic trait, which means that more than one gene pair is involved, versus just one, but blue eyes are the result of one very specific genetic mutation that occurred less than ten thousand years ago. That means there was one founder mutation that gave rise to everyone in Europe with blue eyes.
The trait spread rapidly across the European subcontinent, and while DNA generally gets shuffled and reshuffled each time a new generation is born, people born with this mutation not only have a remarkable number of other genetic markers in common, but this particular stretch of DNA remains so similar suggests that not only are blue eyes a relatively modern mutation, but also that evolutionarily speaking, the mutation had something to offer, otherwise the rapid spread and preservation of the DNA sequence probably would have been less pronounced and perhaps not even have been preserved to the modern era.
It's next to impossible to know what happened ten thousand years ago that made this trait beneficial to early Europeans, but it did, at some point, apparently have some desirable to offer evolutionarily. [He pauses for a moment, chuckling a little.] Or perhaps early Europeans just found blue eyes attractive.
[Private to Erik]
What do you think of David? [He isn't lying in a heap in a hallway somewhere, is he. :|]
[Private to Merlin]
Have you spoken to Arthur?
[Private to Arthur]
I have a favor to ask.
[Private to Barbara]
Do you have a moment?
[Private]
I won't say anything to anyone, but I didn't need to be a telepath to suspect something was going on.
[Private]
Oh, what, is that it? You read my mind?
[Private]
[Private]
[Private]
[Private]
But either way, he's been called out, right? There's no point in denying it anymore.]
Fine.
[Maybe it's true he hasn't been hiding things as well as he should have -- as well as he could have. Last year, there was shame and guilt, there was the sure knowledge he was doing things he shouldn't be. But now?]
So what? Who really cares?
[Private]
[Private]