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CrowdScience

Why do Humans have Different Coloured Skin?

CrowdScience

BBC

Science

4.81K Ratings

🗓️ 13 July 2018

⏱️ 30 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Anand Jagatia heads to the rainbow nation of South Africa, to answer listener Lucy’s deceptively simple question. He follows the path of early human migration to understand the relationship between light skin and latitude, and find out how the world become more multi-coloured as people ventured further away from the equator. And he learns how our genes have helped us adapt to less sunny environments, hearing from the remote KhoeSan tribe in the Kalahari desert, who took part in a massive study aimed at giving scientists a better understanding of pigmentation.

Producer: Marijke Peters Presenter: Anand Jagatia

(Image: Four diverse women’s arms holding each others wrists in a circle. Credit: Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:00.0

Take some time for yourself with soothing classical music from the mindful mix, the Science of

0:07.0

Happiness Podcast.

0:08.0

For the last 20 years I've dedicated my career to exploring the science of living a happier more meaningful life and I want

0:14.4

to share that science with you.

0:16.1

And just one thing, deep calm with Michael Mosley.

0:19.4

I want to help you tap in to your hidden relaxation response system and open the door to that

0:25.4

calmer place within. Listen on BBC Sounds. Don't fall down Merica.

0:37.0

You're right?

0:41.0

Just give short steps here because there's a loose scree on top of the...

0:45.0

Hello and welcome to Crowd Science from the BBC World Service.

0:49.0

Today, from South Africa, I'm Anan Jagatier and I've come to a place on the southern coast called

0:54.8

Pinnacle Point. It's a cave where people were living possibly as long ago as a

0:59.2

hundred and eighty thousand years. There's evidence here of people using stone to make tools, of using fire as an

1:06.6

engineering tool, and even of symbolism in the form of pigment. It's almost like I'm standing

1:11.9

on hallowed ground.

1:13.0

The reason why we've come here is because today's program is all about the story of human migration out of Africa,

1:20.0

how we moved across the world and adapted to our environment in one particular way

1:25.2

and that leads us to this week's question.

1:28.2

Lucy Dolly.

1:32.2

My question number one is why do we have different colors of people in the

1:37.9

universe? Thanks Lucy. Why do humans come in different colours? What makes my skin brown but produce a

1:46.4

Maraker skin much lighter? I think because of the weather changes those who lives near the equator, where the sun sign is too much.

...

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