• Question: Why are most of white people have long nose compared to black people?

    Asked by 587bmay27 to Jonathan, Grace, David, Ann on 4 Jun 2019.
    • Photo: Grace Kago

      Grace Kago answered on 4 Jun 2019:


      According to a study (link is at the bottom of this answer), white folks might have adapted to have long noses due to the climate where their ancestral origins are.

      The second source listed below says:
      ” In the late 1800s, British anthropologist and anatomist Arthur Thomson posited that people with ancestral origins in cold, arid climates were likely to have longer, thinner noses, while those who came from warm, humid regions were inclined to have noses that were shorter and thicker. His theory was that climate has a profound influence on the shape of the human nose, more so than any other evolutionary factor, because one important job of the nose is to warm and humidify air inhaled through the nostrils. This suggests it is an advantage for people in colder climates to have narrower nostrils, and vice versa”

      Sources:
      https://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article?id=10.1371/journal.pgen.1006616
      https://www.popsci.com/climate-nose-shape-evolution

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