"To the growing list of people with fully sequenced genomes, two memorable names have now been added: Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the South African civilrights activist, and !Gubi, a Namibian hunter-gatherer," reads the first lines of an article in the 18 February edition of Nature.

Please download the article and the scientific paper on which it is based.

9th March 2010

Anthropologist, Paleontologist and University Professor Nina Jablonski will discuss “Why human skin comes in colors”

Venue: Wallenberg Centrel, Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study ( STIAS) Marais Street, Stellenbosch

Time: 6pm
RSVP: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
021 557 0246

Skin colour is about ancestry.  Our skin is the largest and most adaptable organ in the body and evidence from science tells us that the structure of the outer layer (the epidermis) and the inner layer (the dermis) of our skin can change rapidly.  Our skin thickens and alters its texture in months, tans in hours and burns in minutes.  But the basic colour of our skins is something that is much older and comes down to us from our long dead ancestors.

Why do humans from different parts of the world have skin colours that are so different?