Genetics

Hi there! I'm new to the forum and I'm very curious about red hair genetics. There was something very astounding about them. Many people says they have a different odour, others say that they smell when it rains. I'm curious about that! Is it true? And if it's true, is there a scientific reason to explain this? I hope I have not posted in the wrong section!

This article, in New Scientist magazine says so, because it says that they are a "universal donor": http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16386-neanderthals-might-have-made-good-blood-donors.html However, it does not specify anywhere that the blood type was rhesus negative, other than its referring to the neanderthal's blood type as a "universal donor", group O. However, only O negative is a universal donor. I could not find any other information on the web verifying that neanderthals are rhesus negative, only that 2 of them were found to have blood group O. I would love to somehow find out more about this, and if they were rhesus negative or not.

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…

We are two students from Denmark, studying for our master degrees in journalism. We are looking for case-subjects for an interview. We are currently working on a theme, dealing with the possibilities of social networking on the basis of genetic-tests, offered by companies such as 23andMe.com. The idea is, that they map your genes and offers you a gene comparison with your friends, family, strangers, people from around the globe, etc. If you have signed up for this or a similar project we would very much like to get in touch with you. The purpose of the interview is to show readers - What motivates you to do this? - How do you use the information given? - In…

Does anyone know websites that have problems/practice questions regarding Mendel's Laws at the high school level? Thanks.

Hi. Just wondering what the general consensus on race is. Obviously humans enjoy categorising things, and sometimes that means forcing things into a category that they don't necessarily fit in to. This seems to happen quite a lot with race, whereby we use a lot of generalisations in physical appearance and place of birth to define a person's race. It seems likely that in the future, with travel becoming so much faster than previously, and people not necessarily living in the same country or continent they were born in that these lines will only blur even more. My question is this; how long do you think it would take before the concept of assigining somebody a race is …

Does the extraembryonic material in prenatal development (including the umbilical cord, yolk sac, etc.) have the DNA of the mother or the embryo? Sorry if this question is badly-phrased or nonsensical; I'm a curious layman.

Hi all, I'm not a student in genetics or for that matter my area of specialization is nothing related to bio. I know nothing about this area. But recently a group of our friends (most of us are electrical engineers) were having a discussion and the topic suddenly came to what a person can do and cannot do. And one of us stated that genes are responsible for what a person can do or cannot do. I was interested in what he said and tried to google about it. But most of the subject went way over my head. So I decided to ask people out here about this. Do genes decide the potential of a person. So when a person is born his genes have already decided what fields he/she can e…

Hi all, I'm currently researching different ways in which DNA reorganises itself when a cell or organism dividesexp: Mat switch in yeast. Can anyone give other examples of said topic for a review I'm writing?

I was wondering, if you impregnated an organism with foreign genes - that is genes which are not known or recognized by that organism (its genome). Would the developed embryo (later on) contain DNA with no function within its genome, in other words 'junk DNA'. And would this be true due to the foreign DNA literally having no role to play within the organism for which it has no (natural) function...

I studied Biology (even have an MS) but have been out of school a long time. Recently I got a pup from a friend's litter that made me think about genetics. The father is a purebred Karelian Bear Dog (KBD). The mother is a Golden Retreiver (GR) that supposedly also has some husky although you can't tell- she just looks like a golden retreiver but with a slightly different body. None of the puppies look like a golden retreiver at all. Five of them look just like baby Karelian Bear Dogs. One of them (mine) looks a little bit like a Karelian Bear Dog and a little bit like a husky. Mine is a girl. There is one other girl and four boys. My question is- with the way the pups l…

If I cross a bar eyed female drosophila with a wild male, what would be the mode of inheritance? I know that it is incomplete dominant. When I bred the bar eyed female with the wild male, I got 35 bar eyed females and 25 males with medium sized eyes. Is this sex linked? How can I describe this? When I bred the hybrids, the second generation had 14 Wild males, 29 Bar eyed females and males and 17 female drosophilas with medium sized eyes. What is the genotype of the bar eyed female and the wild male given that bar eyed=B and wild=b?

can someone explain me how, 4 bases became 64 bases... my text book says 4^3 is 64. But i cant understand what this mean... pls explain..

I've been looking for binary vectors for the transformation of Agrobacterium and the eventual transformation of a plant. I came across a couple binary vectors, but I found pCLEAN to have the most suitable vector choices. When I was looking at the different vectors they contain on their website, I noticed some choices would give you T-DNA on both plasmids. What is the purpose of having two T-DNAs? Also when I was trying to determine which vector of pCLEANto use, I came across this image in a paper evaluating pCLEAN vectors The pictures of G130, G156, and G184 GFP expression don't make sense to me, as how did the GFP gene get into the plant if it was located outside t…

Which mapping population can be used as a starting material for positional cloning and how to proceed?

My question is, how do geneticists know that particular sequence of DNA is caused by a retrovirus rather than a normal inherited gene sequence? I read an article that 8% of our genome is retrovirus inscription, and that we share 16 known retrovirus inscriptions in our DNA with Chimps. I was curious as to how scientists know the difference of normal DNA and Retroviral?

Okay, so i know that full siblings share on average 50% of their DNA. What i can't seem to find an answer to is why is this only on average? Can the DNA shared differ to amounts greater than or less than 50% in full siblings (i.e. a brother and a sister actually share only 42% of genes)? How much can full siblings dna differ from 50% of genes shared, and what is the reason that siblings may share more or less than the average 50%? I am asking about regular siblings and not identical twins.

How is this possible , for example theoretical family both parents with AB x AB blood type get 1/4 children with genotype B-blood type and rest with AB blood type. where are going childern with AA blood type ? Are there some other locuses involved like H locus what can make childern with bombey blood type or something like that ? It Cant be that just A blood type didnt born.

Is it possible,via genetic manipulation, that a human male could carry his and his wife/partner's child, should his wife be sterile, or if he is in a homosexual relationship with an another man? I have read on Wikipedia that in 2000, the very first human uterus transplant between two anoymous ladies, was sucessful. This poses a very interesting question, if it be possible, hypothetically, to genetically manipulate a male human's biology and enable him in becoming pregnant?

Here is a list of what has been bugging me in relation to Drosophila development: We'll take it step by step: Why is it that the gurken mRNA is inhibited from traveling ventrally? Is it that ventral follicle cells lack the torpedo receptor? If so, why do they lack the torpedo receptor? Perhaps this is all dependent on which materials the mother dumps into the egg first. Perhaps the concentration is tightly regulated? Also, should this be considered a molecular biology question?

I keep coming across a variety of genes (abbrevited for reasons I don't know or otherwise), and I keep wondering what these letters stand for. If I correctly understand, the HesC gene abbreviation stands for "Human embryonic stem cell" gene. That's nice and all, but I'm wondering if any of you know a decent database where I can find maybe more detail about these various three letter, four-letter.. #-letter genes I keep coming across. First and foremost, I'm trying to figure out what these abbreviations mean if there is an abbreviation, and perhaps some historical knowledge about these various genes, such as Blimp1. Anyone know where I can find a database or some datab…

Here is an interesting observation. Our neurons don't replicate beyond a certain point, very early in human life. When we take cellular replication out of the picture, we also take away the primary moving force of evolution, which are genetic changes during cell cycles. The question becomes, why do neurons take this important evolutionary path out of their picture? What is the selective advantage in terms of avoiding this main path of evolution?

A University of Michigan-led research team has identified a gene responsible in some families for a devastating inherited kidney disorder, thanks to a new, faster method of genetic analysis not available even two years ago. The success offers hope that scientists can speed the painstaking search for the genes responsible for many rare diseases and test drugs to treat them.

My previous knowledge of genetics is a little foggy, but I remember there being something about one type of ribosome not being able to (EDIT: ribosomes translate; RNA polymerase transcribes) translate the mRNA from another organism. I think it was that prokaryotic ribosomes can't translate eukaryotic mRNA. Or maybe it was the other way around? Either way, I'm reading about the possible transcription of certain genes, such as the germ cell-less (gcl) gene inside of eukaryotic cells during development. It would appear that the hypothesis is that the mitochondrial ribosomes help at translating this gene. How could this be? I suspect the following: 1. Somehow…

I should probably know about this, but I do not. I'm reading about the KIT gene and how a dominant mutation causes piebaldism. Does that mean the following: A non-functional allele mutates into a functional (dominant allele). What does the term "dominant mutation" mean?