h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm not quite sure whether I believe this one or not
A team studying the origin of the gene responsible for red hair has discovered that it is older than the first Homo Sapiens who settled in Europe approximately 30,000 years ago. The gene was found to have been present 100,000 years ago - at least 70,000 years before Homo Sapiens migration into Europe from Africa. Neanderthal ancestry,my Celtic friends?
If I can track down the research on this, I'll certainly write an article.

When a population of a species is particularily diminished it is often the case that it breeds with whatever other species it can find. This is happening with animals such as the Abysinian Fox and it is possible that this may have happened with Neanderthals...
However, the gene would have to be dominant in order for it to be soo prevalent when this interbreeding would have been very low incidence...is it dominant?

That's one of the things I need to check
"It is estimated that 10% of Scots are redheads and an additional 40% of the population, with other hair colouring, carry the gene responsible for red hair" but is it the named researcher who did the estimating or is that just stuff that any (Scots) fule know?

That would make the gene recesive.
50% of people have the gene.
Chance of one gene = 1/2
Chance of both = 1/4
Incidence of red hair < 1/4 therefore red hair seems to require both genes.

I think it's connected with mitochondrial DNA that proves everyone in Europe is descended from one of seven women (except the Celts?) Haven't got time to hunt this before my hols, but I'll leave it here to remind me.

And here we thought the myths about the wee folk were just that Until later....
BCNU - Crescent

Red hair (or ginger as you call it) is recessive. You must inherit the red-haired gene from both your parents before you exhibit the red hair, but you can be a carrier, with one red-haired gene, without showing any signs.

My wife and one of my daughters are both red-haired, so I must be a carrier.

If the gene is more than 70,000 years old, the time when Homo Sapiens came to Europe, that doesn't mean the gene was in Europe before H.S. arrived, it just means that it was in H.S. before he/she moved to Europe.

Are there any other animal species where red hair shows up some of the time? Foxes and Orang-Utans are red-haired all the time, while Wolves and Gorillas are apparently never red-haired.

Answering my own question, Cats are sometimes ginger, but this is a different mechanism to in humans. In cats, it is sex-linked: the red-haired gene is on the X chromosome. A male cat needs only one red-haired gene to be ginger, while a female needs two. This makes female ginger cats much rarer than males. (The probability of a female ginger cat is that of a male ginger cat squared).