My dad was redheaded, so was his brother and (I think) his father. His mom had dark hair but there was some redheadedness on her side. My mom had auburn hair and heard a few family jokes about being the red-headed stepchild (the trait was lurking on both sides). My redheadedness genes die with me as I never felt the least stirrings of parenthood, but now I feel less genetic guilt about not passing along my recessive genes. Yay!

As a redheaded science journalist, I hear this “fact” a lot. Reality is, though, we arent going anywhere. Yes, as Cara Santa Maria points out at Huffington Post, redheads represent only about 1% of the worlds population. And this hair color is related to a recessive gene. Both your parents have to have a copy in order for you to be a redhead, so a redheaded person can have non-redheaded babies. But thats not the same thing as going extinct. Because heres our little secret: We redheads are stealthily infiltrating the rest of humanity. Only 1% of humans are redheads, but 4% of humans carry a copy of the gene that makes redheads. You could be a carrier and not even know it. So could your spouse. Two redheads are unlikely to make a brunette, but two brunettes can make a redhead. Good luck wiping us out. Insert evil laughter here

via For the last time, redheads are not going extinct – Boing Boing