Credit: vividmaps.com Across northern Europe you see the largest shares of naturally light hair . Finland is near 80%, Sweden is around the high 70s, and Norway is in the mid-70s, while Estonia and Iceland commonly appear near 70% in these overviews. What you’re looking at on the map is the outcome of a few simple biological facts and a long human story . Hair colour depends on two main pigments made by the same cells that give skin its colour. Eumelanin produces dark tones and pheomelanin gives red–yellow tones; the relative mix of those pigments is what makes someone’s hair look blond, brown or red. Variants in the MC1R gene and other genes shift that balance and so play a major role in where pale and red hair are more frequent. Why do lighter shades appear so often in the north? Scientists point to an ecological advantage combined with history. In places with weaker sunlight, lighter pigmentation helps with vitamin D production. This selective pressure, combined with ...
Living surrounded by nature isn't just nice to have. It's something humans actually need. City dwellers keep plants on their windowsills for a reason. Apartments near parks rent for more money. Cut off that connection to green spaces and people start feeling pretty miserable pretty quickly. Usually we try to bring nature indoors. A few potted plants here, maybe a view of trees there. But some architects do the reverse. They stick the house right in the middle of nature instead of trying to cram nature into the house. We wrote about Fallingwater before, that wild house Wright built over a waterfall. That's the dramatic version. But Wright had another idea that was less dramatic and way more practical. During the Great Depression, he started designing what he called "Usonian" homes. The word itself came from geographer James Duff Law. Wright hated that "American" technically means anyone from Canada to Chile, so he needed a term that meant just the United...