so the new variant sheds light on the genes underlying pale skin in east asia. people at high latitudes in europe and east asia seem to have independently evolved lighter skin to produce vitamin d more efficiently with less sunlight, says nina jablonski, a biological anthropologist at pennsylvania state university in university park. but, "people have been scratching their heads" about which variants do this in east asians. now, researchers know mfsd12 is one. the ancestors of native americans presumably carried that variant over the bering strait into the americas. "there was variation [in skin tone] present in latin america long before europeans got there," jablonski says. the larger lesson, says geneticist andrs ruiz-linares of fudan university in shanghai, china, chair of candela, is the pitfalls of a eurocentric view. "our study shows that going beyond europeans one can find additional genes, even for well-studied traits. clearly the bias towards europeans has led to a restricted view of human diversity."
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