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Pere Renom

“We have given you, O Adam, no visage proper to yourself, nor endowment properly your own, in order that whatever place, whatever form, whatever gifts you may, with premeditation, select, these same you may have and possess through your own judgement and decision […] We have made you a creature neither of heaven nor of earth, neither mortal nor immortal as the free and proud shaper of your own being, fashion yourself in the form you may prefer.”

Giovanni Pico della Mirandola

Who I am?

It seems that between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago there was a mutation in a gene of a human native to north-eastern Black Sea. Since it was a recessive gene was not expressed until several generations later, when the gene was enough abundant in the population to coincide in both alleles of an individual (inherited from the father and mother). This mutation reduced the ability to produce melanin in the iris and therefore the eye colour was diluted. Instead of presenting the genuine brown colour typical of humans, those eyes were, for the first time, blue. With the arrival of Neolithic peoples of the Middle East spread around Europe and disseminate livestock, farming and blue eyes as well. Currently, there are 150 million people in the world with blue eyes, i.e. about 2% of the population, although its distribution is irregular and can be virtually nonexistent in Africa, Asia or among the original inhabitants of Oceania and America, and represent 17% of the U.S. population, 75% in Germany, 89% in Denmark, or 99% in Estonia. So surprising success, taking into account their unique origin and their recessiveness, that requires some explanation. Certain studies show that blue-eyed men prefer women with the same eye colour (Birds of a feather flock together). The evolutionary interpretation is that this is a way of getting an assurance of paternity: when there is no blue, then blues.

Anyway, in my case this coincidence in the blue colour of both parents met at least the last two generations. With those blue eyes I see the world with attention and tireless curiosity and I enjoy sharing what I discover. For this reason my professional interests focus on science and scientific communication.

Quoting Quevedo, instead of his famous “Once upon a man stuck a nose, once upon a superlative nose …” my defining first stanzas could be: “Once upon a man stuck a pair of eyes, once upon two blue questions marks…”

You can find my CV in  Linkedin