This weekend I visited Eilat (Israel). And the presence of a large number of refugees from Sudan there “suggested” interesting thoughts. And why are blacks black?! After all, everyone knows from school that black (that’s why it’s black) absorbs the entire visible spectrum of light. White, on the contrary, reflects almost everything and the whiter it is, the more it reflects. Those. if you look and think logically, a person living under constant and intense solar radiation should be at least completely white, and even better, mirror-like or even transparent... (even the thought arose about the ideal Negro - white and/or transparent, spherical humanoid.) But nature took it and made it black...

A search for articles on the Tyrnet did not bring any results. Just some fragmentary phrases and racist cries. Wikipedia on the subject of searching for “Negro” and “Negroid race” surprised me with the almost complete lack of information... So I’ll try to combine everything together and produce an adequate article...

Let's start from the very beginning...

Let's define the Negroid race. Here the first surprise awaits us. To my surprise, I did not find a “definition” of the Negroid race, but only vague characteristics from which one can conclude whether a Negro is a person or simply likes to burn tires..

So the characteristic signs:
different heights, elongated limbs (especially hands), dark skin (especially rich in melanin), curly hair, poor beard and mustache growth, wide flat nose, thick lips, large Brown eyes, big ears, prognathism.

This doesn’t lend itself to a clear, scientific definition (by the way, if anyone knows, I’d be grateful for the information), but let’s say that’s enough for us.

Melanin-rich skin, this is what interests us. What is melanin and why do we need it?

Melanin, or rather melanins, is a group of substances found in the skin, hair, retina, tissues, and wool. There is also a chemical definition of the entire group, but there are so many indices for carbon, hydrogen and oxygen that my natural hatred of chemistry overpowered the desire to share information and I will not give examples of these terrifying structures.

We are simply interested in the biological function of these melanins.
...Melanins are widely distributed in plant and animal tissues, as well as in protozoa. They determine the color of skin and hair, for example, the colors of horses, the color of bird feathers (together with interference coloring), fish scales, and insect cuticles. Melanins absorb ultra-violet rays , and by this protect tissues of deep layers of skin from radiation damage. Another recently discovered function is the absorption of ultraviolet radiation to support life...

As can be seen from the above, melanin protects us from ultraviolet radiation. Those. nature “thought and thought” and said - it’s easy to remove heat, if we sweat - the breeze blows - it’s cool for us. But people apparently don’t really need ultraviolet radiation, so they decided to protect themselves from it.

Moreover, the UV protection is dynamic. The more ultraviolet light drips onto us, the better protected we are. This protection is called tanning.

Tanning is the darkening of skin color under the influence of ultraviolet radiation. Darkening occurs due to the formation and accumulation of a specific pigment, melanin, in the lower layers of the epidermis.

Well, we actually got the answer. Blacks lived for a long time (in the biological sense) under intense ultraviolet radiation, and were “tanned” permanently...

Blacks are better protected from ultraviolet light than from visible light and/or heat. That's the whole question...

Now it remains to understand why their palms and soles are white.... o_O

Everyone, including children, knows that representatives of the Negroid race are black. Actually, calling them blacks is now considered vulgar, rude and a little nationalist, so it would be optimal to say that they are African-Americans. However, no matter what we say, they have black skin and few people know why.

Humor, history and other data

Previously, it was believed that pale skin was a sign of aristocracy; later, various nationalist ideas were built on this basis. Blacks were considered a cross between people and animals. But progressive modern society has long abandoned such crazy ideas.

Of course, we all still laugh at jokes about black people. They say that it is more convenient for them to steal at night, and they do not need to sunbathe, however, nothing like this even in the slightest hints at the origin of such a specific skin color.

What does religion say

A heresy, of course, but, nevertheless, until the 70s of the last century, many were of the opinion that all representatives of the Negroid race have black or almost black skin as a punishment for being direct descendants of Ham, not the righteous son of Noah. Under the Old Testament, children were responsible for the sins of their own fathers. Apparently, Ham did such a thing that all his descendants were punished for more than 2 thousand years after him.

Ham did not respect his father and thereby violated one of the commandments of God, for which he was cursed by his father and God. Initially, in the Russian language, the term “boor” meant something slavish, inferior, but not poorly educated.

From a scientific point of view

So, first of all, we need to remember the climate of those territories where blacks live. The sun is scorching there, which means that a large amount of ultraviolet radiation hits the surface of everything that is under its rays. The natural property of human skin is to produce the pigment melanin in response to UV rays, which makes the skin darker. Over time, it turned out that the darker the skin, the less damage it causes from sunlight, the less such people get sick and the longer they live. And then it was only up to the law of natural selection. Gradually, only the darkest of the entire human population remained. They continued their lineage. Only the darkest of their children survived, and so on.

In all cold regions, the process of adaptation to environmental conditions was exactly the opposite. People with initially pale skin turned out to be more viable. They better tolerated the lack of sunlight and, accordingly, the lack of vitamin D. Accordingly, they gradually replaced darker and darker-skinned people from the population. By and large, this is how the formation of races took place. And by the same principle, in the east people with a specific eye shape predominate. This is nothing more than an ingrained correspondence to the climate of the homeland. It goes without saying that the formation was gradual, and the features appeared more and more clearly with each generation.

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Everyone, including children, knows that representatives of the Negroid race are black. In fact, calling them Negroes is now considered provocative, rude and a little nationalistic, so it would be normal to say that they are African-Americans. However, no matter what we say, they have black skin and few people understand why.

Humor, history and other data

Previously, it was believed that pale skin was a sign of aristocracy; later, various nationalist ideas were built on this basis. Blacks were considered a cross between people and animals. But progressive modern society has long abandoned such crazy ideas.

Of course, we all still laugh at jokes about black people. They say that it is more convenient for them to steal at night, and they do not need to sunbathe, however, nothing like this even in the slightest hints at the origin of such a specific skin color.

What does religion say

A heresy, of course, but, nevertheless, until the 70s of the last century, many were of the opinion that all representatives of the Negroid race have black or almost black skin as a punishment for being direct descendants of Ham, not the righteous son of Noah. Under the Old Testament, children were responsible for the sins of their own fathers. Apparently, Ham did such a thing that all his descendants were punished for more than 2 thousand years after him.

Ham did not respect his father and thereby violated one of the commandments of God, for which he was cursed by his father and God. Initially, in the Russian language, the term “boor” meant something slavish, inferior, but not poorly educated.

From a scientific point of view

So, first of all, we need to remember the climate of those territories where blacks live. The sun is scorching there, which means that a large amount of ultraviolet radiation hits the surface of everything that is under its rays. The natural property of human skin is to produce the pigment melanin in response to UV rays, which makes the skin darker. Over time, it turned out that the darker the skin, the less damage it causes from sunlight, the less such people get sick and the longer they live. And then it was only up to the law of natural selection. Gradually, only the darkest of the entire human population remained. They continued their lineage. Only the darkest of their children survived, and so on.

In all cold regions, the process of adaptation to environmental conditions was exactly the opposite. People with initially pale skin turned out to be more viable. They better tolerated the lack of sunlight and, accordingly, the lack of vitamin D. Accordingly, they gradually replaced darker and darker-skinned people from the population. By and large, this is how the formation of races took place. And by the same principle, in the east people with a specific eye shape predominate. This is nothing more than an ingrained correspondence to the climate of the homeland. It goes without saying that the formation was gradual, and the features appeared more and more clearly with each generation.

Simple questions. A book similar to an encyclopedia Antonets Vladimir Aleksandrovich

Why are blacks black?

Why are blacks black?

Although we will be discussing a real natural fact, this topic is quite dangerous from the point of view of political correctness. In the civilized world at the present time, it is incorrect to call blacks negroes. It's like calling Jews kikes. In America, blacks are called African-Americans or, as in Europe, blacks, black people - blackman or blacklady, without any discriminatory connotation.

The answer as to why Africans have black skin is actually very simple. It consists in the fact that their skin contains a significant amount of melanin pigment. It arose as a protection for living beings from excess solar radiation, which is much greater in Africa than in northern countries. Firstly, melanin, thanks to its black color, protects the body from overheating. Secondly, it absorbs harmful ultraviolet radiation, which leads to the formation of so-called free radicals in the body, which are so chemically active that they can cause harm. Thirdly, melanin reacts with the free radicals formed and thereby neutralizes them. By the way, not only Africans are black, but also Asians. Let's say Indians are also dark-black and sometimes darker than Africans. The reason is the same - melanin.

In people with white skin, melanin is also formed from tanning, but if the sun stops working, it is quickly destroyed and the skin becomes lighter again.

But this raises two surprising questions. First: if exposure to solar radiation causes biochemistry to change and there is more melanin, is there anything else going on in the body that is stimulated by sunlight? Photobiology tells us what's going on. We know that vitamin D is formed under the influence of solar ultraviolet radiation, without which a person faces rickets. But many more hormones are synthesized under the influence of sunlight. For example, we wake up easily in the summer because solar radiation leads to the synthesis of a hormone that promotes awakening.

The second surprising question is that humanity divided into races relatively recently. This division, according to various estimates, occurred from 5 to 10 thousand years ago. For example, at the exhibition of the paleontological museum of Moscow State University, dedicated to the great glaciation, I saw materials that in the Vladimir region, during excavations of a site on the Sungir River, the skeleton of a Negroid teenager was found. Skeletons of people of the Negroid race were found both near Voronezh and in other areas of Europe. Whether they were dark-skinned or light-skinned, it’s hard to say.

But it is amazing that the division into white and black races happened so quickly. According to modern genetic ideas, everything should be much slower. So far, science has little understanding of how such rapid changes can occur. Of course, this is less surprising than the rapid development of new dog breeds, but it is also very impressive.

Thus, the simple question of why people have black skin makes us think about how man arose and evolved and how he is changing now. This requires the efforts of many sciences: photobiology, anthropology, archeology, genetics, etc.

By the way, it is known about African Americans that they have become somewhat lighter than their ancestors taken from Africa. Less than two hundred years have passed.

Why do English sailors wear black ties around their necks? Sailors of the English fleet were ordered to wear a loosely tied black tie around their necks in 1805 after the Battle of Trafalgar - as a sign of mourning for Admiral Horatio