I hadn’t heard about Melanesia or Melanesians till I came across an item in a science page. The remote Solomon Islands of Melanesia is the only place on Earth with dark-skinned people who have naturally blond hair.
This remarkable trait naturally set researchers thinking for years, and researching, till they finally hit upon the answer. A unique gene was at play. There apparently was a mutation in the Melanasian DNA, a single letter change of a C replaced with a T which made this possible and made it quite distinct from what’s responsible for blond hair among Europeans.
Imagine, that’s all it takes to make a difference to melanin production and to lead the way to blond hair. I am kidding. I know a letter change is not something small. Not being a science student though, I admit to not understanding all of this except in the broadest of terms. A one letter change that leads to hair becoming golden? It all sounds like magic to me.
And so fascinating too.
That’s why I keep reading stuff like this. It’s extremely interesting even when you don’t understand it all fully. I think of my boring science teachers and rue the fact that they put me off science forever. I wish… But what good does regrets or wishing achieve? Nothing.
Hence here I am in adulthood (more like old age, though the latest by WHO is that old age starts at seventy and I am certainly not there), devouring whatever interesting stuff I can find on the net or in books.
Anyway…
It’s good that I heard of Melanesia thus because I had cause to come across the name again very soon.
Recently, I did one of those genetic testing things out of curiosity, where ancestry and genetic predisposition reports are generated by giving a sample of your saliva. And what did it say? Nothing earth-shattering. I am from around the parts where I live now. All 99.7% of me. Out of the rest, 0.2% trace ancestry is… you guessed it, Melanesian! Makes you wonder, who, what, when, where and so on. Right?
©️ Shail Mohan 2025
Shail's Nest 
I am in the WHO old age bracket but have never given up reading interesting articles covering a wide range of topics. One of my joys is that, like me, my middle child loves coming across new words – we have already exchanged two each today 🙂
Ah genes are fascinating! I teach this stuff so I find it amazing. You may be surprised that just one ‘letter’ change makes the difference but you may be even more surprised to find out there’s only four bases (letters) – A, T, C and G – that are in the whole of your genes, repeated in their millions in various combinations. And A and T can only join with each other and C and G with each other. A group of three of them make what’s called a codon which is quite literally a ‘code’ your body cells use to put amino acids together to make, ultimately well over 40% of your body. And there’s only 20 amino acids! Everyone, in all their complexities, are made of just 20 different amino acids coded by just four different bases.
It’s all very, very interesting!