Yvette's Inner Geek Blog

Continuing yesterday’s topic of eyes and genetics.

My maternal grandfather was red-green colorblind, as was his brother. I don’t know if either of his parents were colorblind, but since the gene expresses itself only on the X chromosome* and is therefore only inheritable to men via their mothers, my great-grandmother was a carrier of the gene if not colorblind herself. If she were only a carrier, each of her boys had a 50% chance of inheriting the gene.

Genetic probability is like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in my family: absurd, but not impossible. My grandfather had nine daughters and my great-uncle had four daughters.

So all of my aunts and their first cousins inherited a color-deficient X chromosome from their fathers. At least two of my male first cousins are colorblind, and who knows how many of us females are carrying the gene since none of us have children yet. But it turns out that my great-uncle’s wife was also a carrier of the gene—and one of her four daughters is colorblind (0.5% incidence rate in women). Both of her sons are colorblind.

Another thing I find very interesting in my family is the statistically high number of colorblind men whom my aunts have married. If only 5-8% of men in the general population are colorblind, it’s absurd, but not impossible, that a third of my married-into-the-family uncles are colorblind. (Maybe it has something to do with a genetically predisposed attraction to men who wear mismatched socks.)

I wonder if there’s a correlation between color blindness and eye color? It seems like there should be some sort of science already done on that sort of thing. I’m guessing not, since eye color is determined by a completely different set of genes. Wouldn’t it’s be cool, though, if people who were colorblind had, ironically, one green eye and one red eye? Yes, I’m also fascinated by heterochromia (each eye a different color: think David Bowie), though that doesn’t run in the family. Well, technically my hazel eyes are an example of central heterochromia (two different colors in the same iris) but that’s just not as cool. (Well, I do have a trick lazy eye that’s kind of cool. I can control it and easily weird out Ben anytime I please. Heh heh.)

So what have I learned from all of this? That I am easily fascinated.

Semi-related: At the next family reunion, I want to take close-up photos of everyone’s eyes (blood-related and not), then ask people to guess whose eyes they all are. It’ll be interesting to see how similar (or different?) they all look.

*You can learn more about the details and probability of inheritance from Causes and Incidences of Colorblindness

I can’t believe I forgot to mention the coolest thing about my last 2010 Sundance volunteer day! I twittered on Saturday that Karen Allen had just walked out of the Screening Room. I didn’t get a great look at her, but figured that would be the closest I would ever come to her. NOT TRUE!

Sunday morning, Karen Allen was in the lobby again. Yes, Marion from the Indiana Jones movies was a few feet away from me. She and a (her?) casting agent didn’t have a ticket to see The Extra Man, so they needed to buy them from me (well, technically from the box office). I didn’t let her buy one, though. Because I volunteered a bunch for the Sundance Institute over the summer, I had been given a few guest vouchers that could be exchanged for waitlist tickets… so I refused the $20 she held out to me and told her that I would like to buy her ticket for her. As a volunteer, I’m expected to control my fangirl-gushings, so I didn’t tell her how happy I was to meet her or she was in some of my favorite movies as a kid—the Indiana Jones trilogy, of course, but also Scrooged.

I handed her the voucher from my badge pcket, which I then needed to take back (LIKE A BIG IDIOT) so I could give her the ticket that would actually get her into the theater. She was somewhat quiet, but smiled and said thank you. She looked exactly like she did in the fourth Indiana Jones movie (even though I’m still trying to forget that ever happened). I wish that I had been able to chat with her a little, but the lobby was busy and she was shuffled into the theater as soon as she got her ticket. I saw her again in the crowd on her way out. I regret not asking for a photo with her.

And finally, I don’t know what Robert Redford has against me—or who is conspiring to keep him away from me. He attended a screening at the resort on the first Saturday night and in unprecedented fashion, was there early and even stood to ask a question in the Q&A afterward. Where was I? Park City. He came by the second Saturday night shortly after I’d gone home. He stopped by the Sundance Screening room while I was there on Sunday—but I was inside the theater and nobody came to get me. I mean, really. There was also a near-miss this past summer. I’m sick of hearing other people’s “Bob” stories! I want my own!

I’ve been helping out with Sundance Institute functions at the resort enough this year to think that my chances of actually seeing him—let alone meeting him—are pretty good. But it seems as though, in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern metaphor, my Robert Redford coin keeps landing on heads when I’m betting on tails.

I could also pull in a Hitchhiker’s Guide reference while I’m at it.

Life, as many people have spotted, is, of course, terribly unfair. For instance, the first time the Heart of Gold ever crossed the galaxy the massive improbability field it generated caused two-hundred-and-thirty-nine thousand lightly-fried eggs to materialise in a large, wobbly heap on the famine-struck land of Poghril in the Pansel system. The whole Poghril tribe had just died out from famine, except for one man who died of cholesterol-poisoning some weeks later.

Terribly unfair. Yeah.