Hello and welcome to Ingenius on the BBC World Service, the programme exploring the weird

and wonderful world of our genes. I'm Dr Catani and I'll be delving into the stories and a little bit of the science behind two of the most fascinating

human genes.

I hope you're as excited as I am because we're starting with my favorite gene of all. The Ginger gene.

There is a place where one meets many red-headed people.

This proud nation honors its sons of the sun.

They say a person with red hair is the son's child.

A red-headed person is closest to the gods. The gods love them.

I can just picture the scene.

A typical Celtic redhead, flaming locks tousled by a stiff Irish breeze.

Wait while I fetch my harp.

In fact, these children of the sun live in Udmertia, nestling in the shadows of the

Ural Mountains deep in eastern Russia. Around 10% of Udmurt's have red hair, that's one of the highest

concentrations in the world. Though they may be separated from their Celtic brethren by thousands of miles,

the one thing that links all these redheads together is a single gene. Humans were fascinated by heredity way before we knew anything about genes, genetics or DNA.

Families have distinguished themselves by their shared characteristics

for about as long as anyone has peered at a new baby and said,

oh she looks just like you.

Today just like you. Today we're told that our genes make us who we are, fair skinned or dark,

blue-eyed or brown, tall or short.

And yes, there's a gene for being ginger.

But before we get to that, what exactly are genes anyway?

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