What cause people to have different colors? Why are some races black, some
skin brown, and others white? Most scientists now agree on the causes of different skin color.
Dark skin, they say, is probably the result of exposure to sunlight. It is the body's
way of protecting itself against the ultraviolet rays of the sun. overexposure to ultraviolet
rays can result in a number of negative effects such as skin cancer, a reduction in fertility,
and even premature aging among women. However, most dark people from the tropics are
protected from these effects by a dark coloring substance in the skin called melanin.
The ability to produce melanin is hereditary, and scientists believe that only the
races which developed this natural protection against the sun's dangerous rays were able to
survive in hot, sunny lands. Races which did not have it died out or migrated to colder,
cloudier land
Thus people who produced melanin developed into the dark-skinned races of the
world who live in hot climates, for instance the Africa negritoes, the pygmy negritoes of
South East Asia and the Australian aborigines.
Climate also probably explains why white people have light-colored skins. Although
too much ultraviolet light is harmful to human being, some is necessary for health growth.
For example, it helps the body to form Vitamin D, which makes bones strong. In cloud
Northern Europe a dark skin would have filtered out too much sunlight preventing the body
from forming enough vitamin D. This would have produced people with small, weak bone. A
light skin, on the other hand, allows the body to receive enough ultraviolet rays in a cloudy
climate to produce the vitamin D it needs for normal growth. Consequently, in lands with
less sunlight, people developed lighter skins.