Genetics

This question has been on my mind for years, and it's driving me nearly insane. Even if I get the answer, like, "Oh, it's just probability," I still would like a more in depth answer--how? For example, my family has some neighbors named Family A. In family A, the mother is alright-looking, while the father isn't that great looking, but he's a smart guy. The first son of theirs is fairly good-looking, but probably has Asperger's, got a perfect score on the SAT, etc. (He's the only on that actually looks like his parents).The first daughter looks like a downright model, with blonde hair and perfect skin. The second son just blows my mind. He is well over 6'4", Adonis-li…

Hi my question is, is it really rare or uncommon for a person with natural blonde hair to have hazel eyes? Im a natural blonde and people are always accusing me of bleaching my hair because blondes usually have blue or green eyes...

Out of curiosity, what ethnicity (or mixed ethnicity) would produce a person with white skin, black hair and green eyes? As far as I can tell, naturally black hair seems a rarity amoung western caucasians, for some reason or another. Green eyes are also far less common than, say, blue or brown. To get the ball rolling, I'm guesing Northern European is largely out of the question (fair hair and skin)... Any suggestions?

I heard that that your hair comes from you mother's father, is there any truth to that? (please say yes!)

Wings on a human? i was thinking, we could graft wings on a human with enough commitment and research... i have accounted for all the weight loss needed, lung and muscle expansions(including the heart), the traebuclae (i think thats how you spell it) the neural mapping (connecting of nerves and waiting for the brain to map that limb), the energy requirements,skin engineered to be able to accept feathers, etc etc. but i need more info on what would be required as it would be extremly difficult to make an enzyme and a restriction enzyme to do all of this. it would take many years of perseverance and hardship, the personal ethics problem wouldn't help and it would requi…

Hey, are there more than 2 sexes? I recently talked to a person who told me that it has been scientifically proven that there are more than 2 sexes biologically and that the biological sex is a spectrum, so I wanted to ask if this is the truth? Btw: it was definitely about biological sex, not gender. My ideas: I know men have XY and women have XX chromosomes. I know there can be mutations in which humans can have XXY chromosomes, but is this called the another sex? especially when this person isnt fertile. And if you include all mutations of the sexgenes, would you get a Spectrum? If you were to ask me spontaneously what the definition of a sex is, I woul…

Im not sure if someone already had a thread about this...But my friend told me he saw somebody with two different colored eyes and now he wants them:confused: I told him about these forums and he wanted me to ask, is it possible to give yourself two different colored eyes without hurting yourself or blinding yourself?? p.s w/o contacts of course...thanks

Mylène Jampanoï is a half French/half Chinese actress. Naturally, she has black hair, fair skin, green-gray eyes, and Asian characteristics with Caucasian tones. What's cool (to me at least) is how versatile she can be with her looks. In photos of her when her hair is brown, she looks as if she's full-on Caucasian, while black hair makes her appear completely Asian (eye color aside). A few days ago I wondered what she'd look like if her eyes were dark, so I quickly photoshopped them brown. Without those piercing peepers, she'd look just like any other Asian. Now it's been said that her father is a full-blooded Chinese. My…

When people talk about homosexuals they say "They dont have a choice" "its genetic", i refuse to believe that, i dont think you can be born gay, but by the experiences people venture through that makes them gay. Also i dont believe in the gay gene because growing up, most of my friends and i didnt like girls till around 4th and 5th grade. i went through that "girls are icky" phase pretty much. Anyways i dont believe the gay gene exists and i do believe its a life choice, people have their free will to choose or not in my opinion, if the gay gene does exist then its a very confusing part of genetics. what do you guys think?

DNA is read 5' to 3'. But when the mRNA is being synthesized by the RNA polymerase- is the mRNA created 3' first or 5' first? e.g. Imagine that below is the double-stranded DNA. The gene needed to be transcribed is in bold. 5'-AGTGGGCCG-3' 3'-TCACCCGGC-5' So the DNA is now unwound by a helicase, and all the transcription factors are bound, etc. Below is the template DNA strand (with the gene required) in black, and the new mRNA in red. But which way does it go? 5'-AGTGGGCCG-3' 5'-UCACC>>>> I'd imagine something like this. But can the mRNA (red) align with the template DNA both in the same direction? Can anyone hel…

Hy Guys, My son looks exactly like my wifes brother! He is only 2 weeks old. The pictures of my wifes brother look exactly the same when he was 2 weeks old! I can't see a single difference! The think is that I hate him! I can't stop thinking about this as he has always been mummies little boy getting everything he asked for. He never talks to me and doesn't like me! Do you think that he will look like him when he gets older?! Is it genetically possible for my son to look exactly like his uncle? I wouldn't be surprised if he looked like a grandad but how can my girlfriend carry a genetic information of her brother? I am pretty pissed off that he hasn't got my looks…

I am currently working on my master thesis and I have calculated some individual inbreeding coefficients and Fis per population. Can someone explain why Fis for a population is negative (e.g. -0.011) and individual inbreeding coefficients of that population are all positive / mean individual inbreeding coefficient of that population is positive (e.g. 0.242)? Fis values were calculated in FSTAT program. And individual inbreeding coefficients were calculated in PLINK software. (SNPs that had LD>0.1, MAF < 0.05 and more than 10% missed genotypes were excluded from the original dataset before analysis) I hope someone has an answer to my question. Thanks in adv…

As a first line of defense against racism, most people say that race has no biological validity and that all apparent racial differences are just skin deep. But this defense mistakenly assumes that our very important moral value -- that all human beings must be treated with equal respect -- can only be sustained if it also happens to turn out to be the case that all human beings are in fact equal in every respect, and especially equal by race, which can at most be a contingent fact which later evidence could always prove false. Since our moral commitment to treating all people as equal is absolute, while any scientific evidence that races are equal in all capacities and…

i once read an article in newspaper(sorry i cant provide the reference), it says when clasp your hands at will, finding your right thumb over your left thumb makes u feel more comfortable than your left hand thumb over your right hand thumb, it shows u are more likely to be a science student who is good at math,physics,chemistry and the like. if you find it is your right hand thumb under your left hand thumb, u are more likely to be an arts student who is not so good at math, physics and chemistry and the like. it is decided by gene. try and see. do it the way u feel more comfortable to clasp your hands.

It's been reported that Dick Cheney and Barrack Obama are 8th cousins, having a common ancestor 8 generations ago. Other reports surfaced (most done by the New England Historic Genealogical Society, not sure how credible they are) that stated Obama being related to 8 U.S. presidents including both Bushs, Harry Truman, LBJ, through something ridiculous like "11th cousins 3 times removed" and the youtube community just about lost their minds. Anyways, what are the odds of random people.... well they aren't random people. What are the odds of people of the same race (Obama is biracial, but the rest are white) and similar social status being 6th, 7th, or even 11th cous…

Hi all, I would much appreciate if somebody could point me in the right direction to working out a few simple things about a child based on it's parents and maybe grand parents features. I would like to start with something simple like hair or eye colour, height or whatever is easiest (hair would be best if possible). So if someone could explain how to work it out and back it with some links to formulas that can be understood by a regular person that would be great! The scenario would be, e.g: man with blond hair + woman with dark hair = what is the most probable hair colour for their child and what is the probability. Then to narrow it down (complicate i…

I dunno, if this post has been placed anywhere else on this website yet, as, as is clear from the fact that I am a "Lepton" (btw that is jks ppl!), I am very new to this site! The question I am putting forward is, do people agree that there is a gene that predisposes people / men to homosexuality? All thoughts welcome, I will post my own ideas, once other people start putting forward their respose! I did read an article about a theory that the supposed gene also allows women to have more children ... as if there were a gene, the question is: surely homosexuality should have died out by now?

Why does [acr=Ribonucleiic acid]RNA[/acr] have 5 bases and [acr=Deoxyibonucleiic acid]DNA[/acr] has only 4? I really don't understand why! [acr=Ribonucleiic acid]RNA[/acr] is used in the replication of proteins (Because it can fit through the nuclear pores and the [acr=Deoxyibonucleiic acid]DNA[/acr] cannot) so why would it need to ahve a 5th base when only 4 are needed to complete [acr=Deoxyibonucleiic acid]DNA[/acr]? There must be a reason why it has 5 when [acr=Deoxyibonucleiic acid]DNA[/acr] has only 4 and [acr=Ribonucleiic acid]RNA[/acr] is supposed to be a simpler form of [acr=Deoxyibonucleiic acid]DNA[/acr] so why would it need 5 bases? This question ha…

or does one DNA molecule = all the chromosomes, ie, all the genetic material in our cells?

What kind of frequency is considered to be a very deep male voice? 100HZ? 90HZ? 80HZ? I want to do later as scientist a genome wide association study of human voice level. I speculate that you can find out which SNPs in which genes do have an influence on human voice level. I would messure the human voice level of 20'000 men. Then I would do my study in this way: I take every man that has a deeper voice than 80HZ. And compare their genotype data with all men who have a higher voice than 80HZ. And then I would take every man who has a deeper voice than 85HZ and would compare with every men who has a higher voice. Is this succesfull?

Admit it, we've all heard one of those terrible blonde jokes. But are they really that dumb? I am sure these didnt start from nothing. There is always truth in rumours.

I have some questions regarding the RH factor in blood. There are many far-out ideas concerning RH negative blood over the internet if you do a search via google, however most of it appears to be theoretical, not scientific. A few things appear to be established as true. Firstly, researchers do not know the exact origin of RH negative blood in humans, but one possibility is a genetic mutation that may have occurred a long time ago (triggered by maybe a disease that was going around, therefore acting as a defense against this disease?). I have a question that I have not been able to find the answers to on the internet, and I was hoping that someone knowledgeable on gen…

Should we find a way to make Eugenics work?

How did all the racial physical differences become what they are? I mean how did blacks and south asians and aboriginese end up with dark skin? How did asians end up with slanted eyes?

It’s safe to say that most people – not just the (wo)man in the street but also biologists – work on the assumption that genetics explains what we are, or at least our bodies. There is, of course, a nature-nurture debate concerning many of our mental functions. Clearly, genetics doesn’t explain which language we speak. And there’s a thing called epigenetics: the influence of our environment on how we develop. If you eat too much you get fat, work out in the gym and your muscles grow. But the fact that we’ve got two arms and two legs, a heart that beats, eyes that see – that’s all genetics, right? Wrong. To explain why, we’re going to have to go pretty deep, but I’ll do my…