An amazing thing happened to the frogs that live around Chernobyl due to the radiation in the atmosphere following an explosion at a nuclear power plant there in 1986. The frogs that live close to Chernobyl have black skin and as you go further out away from Chernobyl the frog’s skin colour gradually returns to the normal green colour. The reason for this is amazing.
Melanin is the pigment in our skin that makes our skin darker when we get a tan and is more present on people with darker skin. Someone who is black has more than someone who is white. Frogs have melanin in their skin too and it turns out that as well as absorbing UV, melanin also dissipates ionising radiation. Over around 15 generations of natural selection the frogs closer to Chernobyl with darker skin survived and passed on their genes to the next generation to the point where the colour of the frog’s skin relates directly to the distance they are away from the site of the nuclear power plant explosion and the subsequent radiation.
In human beings this is also true of UV light. Closure to the equator people have darker skin and further away from the equator people have lighter skin going back hundreds of generations, because the UV light is stronger at the equator and less strong the further north and south you go. Culture and race are often defined by the colour of someone’s skin because where our ancestors lived effected bother their culture and their skin colour.
The only difference in the skin is the amount of melanin each person has. In everything from the skin to the bones we are all essentially the same. White people are not white and black people are not black, we are all shades of brown. We are all one race, the human race; with different and wonderful cultures and histories. So when you look at someone who is different because of there skin colour, remember the physical difference is only skin deep.
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