THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, AUGUST 4, 1951,
WHAT WILL YOUR BABY BE LIKE?
0%
F the various myths about parent- hood, eno mont ardently cherished is that which many couples cling to about "putting themselves in the right state for the conception of a child."
↑
Now, the sad, unromantic fact is that whether a child is conceived during sojourn on sunny strands or in the de- pressing air of a dingy tenement, whother in the height of passion or when its parents are barely on speaking terms with one another, the hereditary factors transmitted to it will be not one whit different.
Nature's way
The questions answered this week
ARE MEN TOUGHER THAN. WOMEN?
Why is the 'child of old age' often highly strung?
WHAT, then, of a "love child"? Popular CAN YOUR HAIR TURN WHITE-
belief is that a child born out
wedlock is likely to be more
of delicate,
more sensitive, developing to extremes- criminal. sometimes a genius, often a
But in fact Nature does not take any note of marriage certificates.
chill may be
different An illegitimate from a legitimate child-if its environment is different. But otherwise legitimacy has little importance.
•
to
The age of parents is also belleved affect the nature of the child, but only through environmental induences,
A child born when a mother
is in mid-forty and the talher
in his sixties frequently appears to be frailer than others,
The explanation is that much Inte births are often unwanted, and occur where conditions for child-bearing are bad.
IN A NIGHT?
What decides wavy or straight hair?
DOES ILLEGITIMACY MAKE ANY DIFFERENCE?
And so is hair form, Whether you
have straight, kinkly, wavy, or curly hair
From one generation to another,
The male is much more val- mortality diminish considerably, nerable to many directly here but with male casualties stin ditary diseases and defects.
always in the lend.
There are environmental fac- ere, such as differences in ec- is entirely de-cupations, habits and behaviour, penden! оп
which expose the male to great
t ancestry. hazards.
"It's a man's world!" Wo.
"hale-colour" men have been saying this, and flattered, men have believed it, from the beginning of time..
But in one important respect it's all wrong.
If the key But this pigment itself is not blue, What is present in the gene works to produce a heavy of melanin In and "blue" eyes is merely a scatter- deposit
the brownish melanin among the hair cells, the result
hair; 'a
less Jittle ing of particles, which produce the is black optical effect of blue through the melanin, dark brown hair; still reflection and dispersion of light less, light brown; very dilute,
rays.
Following birth, other factors
It is precisely in this way that The "child of old age," enter.
pake the sity surrounded, as is usually the dust particles case, by much older brothers, look blue.
is their friends. alblers, and
In GREY EYES the gene ac-
a produces frequently pampered, and may tion
somewhat the of concentration quite understandably become heavier high-strung and precocious.
pigment in the rear of the iris.
'Incompatibility'
IN children born to 'very young 'mothers (under 17, both the pre-birth and post-natal conditions are also likely to be unfavourable.
One common question regard- ing mating also deserves special attention.
"Can there be such-n-thing-
blond hair.
Red hair-
;
Men's death-rate
male
Then with maturity, the curvej goes sharply up again, becom- tag more marked in the middle and older ages, where in almost every major affliction, except in ilabetes, cancers peculiar to women, and goitre, the
tath rate is much higher.
(By an excer
of 40 percent for mates In diseases of the heart, 130 percent in diseases of the arteries and angina pec Even If a boy baby and a girl Paris, 100 percent in cirrhosis baby should both tumble down of the liver, 100 percent in the steps or have any other ulcers, etc.)
the same accident of exactly Icind-the chances of fatullty
N the first year of life, the average death rate among boy infants is 30 percent higher than among girls.
In health and physical well- being the human female, from before birth and throughout Hic, is favoured far above the mole. are markedly greater for the
sex differences. boy.
The general
In the make-up and function-
(World Copyright) NEXT WEEK
RED hair is due to a supple ing of the body endow the As childhood proceeds, and Why two plain people
mentary gene which pro- duces a diffuse red pigment.
That "the "red-hair" gene is
or
eye colour whereas brown with
an independent little cuss 13 1 In GREEN EYES the rear of shown by the fact that red hair the iris has the same kind of may be present with almost any pigmentation as in blue or grey eyes, but in addition there is a black hair usually goes special gene which lays down a certain amount of dilute brown or yellow pigment in front.
Superimposed on the "blue" background, this produces the effect of green.
--or brown?
as a genetic incompatibility be. IN BROWN EYES the "key"
tween parents that would seriously affect or prevent birth
of children?"
Yes, but only as applied, ta certain individuals, not to rares, groups. or "types" of human beings.
The tallest, blondest "Nordic" could mate with the smallest, blackest plgmy and produce children perfectly normal in the eyes of Nature.
Eye Colour
E now know that the process
resemblances
but
gene is active enough to sa up the front of the iris with
WHY
you
米
are
WHAT
you are
brown or black eyes, and blond hair usually goes with blue or grey eyes.
How the "red-hair" деле -works in relation to a "blond" gene is not yet completely clear. Theoretically, it should do- cases where blend parents have minate the blond, but we have a red-haired child.
chief hazards the advantages as
pre
female with many in resisting or overcoming most reduced for a time, the differ- .
ence between the discoses.
sexes
OFF TO SKELETON 'COAST:
A land of death
IF
and diamonds
By GEOFFREY JENKINS
in
mo
NIFTEEN men have gone plorer and archaeologist, Mr-
Carp. He told beyond the reach of Bernard
before setting out: "I have been radio, of camels, of help entrusted with the queerest task With Fare excepan of the law-into a of my experience, bringing back.
of dhows which "blond" gene is de- wilderness from which few limbers
believe once sailed from Sofala finitely
to have returned alive. These to St Helena. I chall also bring those for all darker are the 15 men from six back skeletons for universities hair shades.
Lions, however, the
recessive
10
different nations who are and museums.
Age plays a much exploring more Important part
in hair colour than territory"
it does in eye colour.
Light hair
the "forbilden photograph
strandlopers of Skeleton them."
We
And I want to the mysterious And If we can
Coast, in Southwest Africa. The last outpost is a while
No man is allowed to enter Foreign Layton fort -named hase this land without special Nomutoni. tendency to turn dark-
er from childhood on permission.
through maturity, as may also be true of red hair.
This wild area, about the Bize of England, is banned
Beyond lies
the
sand, the fabulous wealth of diamonds and the kaokoveld's ruler-death.
The expedition, which is now In the white races, bables are by law as being "heyond cut off from civilisation, possed frequently born with And, Anally, in BLACK Porary growth
of heredity con act in pigment that no reflection can many peculiar ways to produce be seen. not only marked differences parents and their offspring.
Among the differing traits are the colouring of eyes, hair, and pkin.
1
tem- the police zone" and be by the Republic which has been
T
of Rehobour, recognised
In of dark hair cause of its diamond, riches, the past both by Germans and
settlers.
Onga in a few weeks Is re- It is banned also by nature South African between EYES (or very dark brown) the which
gene Is of the most vigorous placed by light hair.
because it has the most. brave pioneers, the, tribe which now lives there comprises type, which lays down an in-
But if the dark hair remains. ruthless coast in the world'
mostly alcoholic degenerates tense deposit of pigment in the
become and a waterless, front of the Iris, and perhaps only rarely
la farmsicad trackless who will give you also in the rear, making it com- lighter in colour as a
for a bottle of brandy. pletely intransparent.
Colour, as we know it, ia not a substance, but an effect
the reflection produced by
of
grows up.
·
docs. It
What happens when an Indi- ---and grey
vidual receives one kind of "eye-
from the
aur colour differences. The wide child would range of eye colours, from black
other
child
;
It
and uninhabited interior.
The dread, sand-laden 100-
BIG METEORS oopwa wind moans eternally through 'this land, creating
Part of this territory is sup colour" gene from one parent, HERE a parent has greyed bones
nature's funeral dirge over the light on different materials.
In meteors. and a different gene from
of dead men and the W
the posed to attract for "Blue" eyes,
example, other parent?
prematurely, in cases a child will begin to grey const. The natives dread even corded as having Hit the earth many wrecks of ships which liter the this respect it resembles Siberia. The biggest meteor ever TC- have no blue substance in them,
If a child should receive just at about the same time.
to mention the stark kaokoveld, but merely look blue to us.
one dark "eye-colour gene
nickel-steel. is house-sized, One
brown pigment, from one parent,
The exact cause of "natural" which means "coast of loneli les embedded in the sand. basie
no matter
worth £35,000 a ton, but cannol of what other gene it received and normal greying, though,."
Diamonds, dead
and wo ships, melanin, accounts for most
On one aldo it is bo moved. parent that has not been established, nor dead mun....that is what you scorched where zombone tried
medically approved find there. But have dark brown has any
this first selen. Scorch way been found of preventing it
to cut oft a plece with an Life expedition to enter ther or of restoring bair colour once
acetylene torch, territory will ring back no it is lost.
This molcor was once bought diamonds, or pieces of eight
a barrel of brandy, but the for Incidentally, when grey hair from Elizabethan golicons be
lieved to have been lost there. buyer did not know it was comes · naturally; it has no
brunovable. Th
The desert is pitted. TECHESITY connection with The prizes they seek are clues health or physical fitness, and to an ancient civilisation and with smaller oner. A complete a fortune," bas to new scientifle rockery, worth.
been made, of, matéorites in the need not be related to ageing pointers
wonders.
Windhoek .public. gårdend, but, in other ways.
Occasionaly, persons during
like the diamonds, the meteorites NEAREST LINK
are not for export. long illness or as a result of. como harrowing. experience They hope to encounter what Somewhere out in the desech may have their hair gradually no other living men have seen the expedliion is working its turn grey or while.
de: a -race of "strandlopers" - (sen- ̈ way to the sea. Because there
to light blue, all are regulis of
*eyes.
The
black
(or
for geno the way different "eye-colour" brown) eyes dominates that for genes produce and distribute any of the lighter shades. melanin, plus one or two other. pigments.
Eyes to m
match Geneticisis believe that the original "eye colour" genes HERE is a remote possibility (Genes carry the seeds of that humans who want new heredity from one generation to eve colours may not in future another were the highly detivo, have to wait for their genes, to ones producing in all the first oblige them. humans heavily pigmented eyes, dark brown or "black"
Where eye-colour is deter mined is in the cells of the iris, which is the small disc around the pupil.
Why blue-
One leading geneticist, the late Professor koriously suggested that new,
H. S. Jennings out this la, far from support shore wanderers) who are the is no water on the coast, they
nearest ink of man with the have a plant to distil son-water.
are aclours might conceivably fng the popular belief that a cares
overnight
chemicals.
be produced by means of parson's hale can turn white They also hope to
to and Jost "The stark coastline shifts con- gold workings of the ancient tinually and \har" never been So the time may come when Walle, a sudden. nerva upset world, a race of negroid men in properly mapped. Off-shore; women may be able to change might cause the new hair to the lost world of the Brandberg volcanic upheavals are common, the coloter of their eyes just as grow out white no nervous Mountains, giant motors sunk, islands come and to and the TN V BLUE EYES the genes are they now thange their hair ahosit could instantly knock out in the desert and a cave portrait sulphinnatul peapewa po mora Loweaklings which produto colours
Key all the pigment particles in the
Mediterranean woman wrecks among 108 Hiile or no pigmont, in the front
of, thờ: kris, but manage to pro»; The pigrivent found inayos,
yours, diptore” bones.
duce a certain amount In the maladies also the peilig per effaire colour is definitely de- The expedition is being.
can have a beautiful
child.
London Express Service
This is
GORDONS
DRY GIN
the Gin
DIRTILIZON, &
LONDON.
MY APPOINTMENT
GON BESTELLKES TO ILM. KING GEORGE VË Tanqueray Garlan' & Co, Ləl
Quality
Incomparable
Gordon's
Stands Supreme
Sole Agents
DODWELL
FOR THE
CO., LTD.
FINEST DIAMONDS
*
TAI HANG JEWELLERY,
Sole Agents for, LIBERTY DIAMOND WORKS LTD, Johannesburg.
Room 707, 7th Floor, Bank of East Asia Bldg. Telephone 21388
BEAUTY
GEOGRAPHY
& POLITICS
It's good politics to know conditions in your neighbouring
countries-Siam, Ma- laya, The Philippines, Indo-China—these
are your markets! Know them well and make more profit. Move around in the Orient by CPA. the local airline that
is making the Orient smaller, bringing places of beauty with- in your easy reach!
Lathing Prafic Mirways
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.