African__ Dark Skin

Afri was the name of several peoples who dwelt in North Africa near the
provincial capital, Carthage. The Roman suffix "-ca" denotes "country or
land".[3]

Other etymologies that have been postulated for the ancient name 'Africa':

* the Latin word aprica, meaning "sunny";
* the Greek word aphrike, meaning "without cold." This was proposed
by historian Leo Africanus (1488-1554), who suggested the Greek word phrike
(f?, meaning "cold and horror"), combined with the negating prefix "a-",
thus indicating a land free of cold and horror.

Black is a racial, political, sociological or cultural classification of people. No people are literally colored black, but many people who have dark skin color are considered to be. A variety of socio-political and biological factors are used to define categories of black people.

Some assert that only people of relatively recent African descent are black, while others argue that black may refer to individuals with dark skin color regardless of ethnic origin.

Scientists now believe that humans first appeared in Africa between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago. Dark skin helped protect against skin cancer that develops as a result of ultraviolet light radiation, causing mutations in the skin. Furthermore, dark skin prevents an essential B vitamin, folate, from being destroyed. Therefore, in the absence of modern medicine and diet, a person with dark skin in the tropics would live longer, be more healthy and more likely to reproduce than a person with light skin. Scientists point to the fact that white Australians have some of the highest rates of skin cancer as evidence of this expectation.

Conversely, as dark skin prevents sunlight from penetrating the skin it hinders the production of vitamin D3. Hence when humans migrated to less sun-intensive regions in the north, low vitamin D3 levels became a problem and lighter skin colors started appearing. The people of Europe, who have low levels of melanin, naturally have an almost colorless skin pigmentation, especially when untanned. This low level of pigmentation allows the blood vessels to become visible and gives the characteristic pale pink color of white people. The difference in skin color between black and whites is however a minor genetic difference accounting for just one letter in 3.1 billion letters of DNA.

SOURCE: Wikepedia

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