First Day of Unit 4: Alleles

In this class we started the fourth unit which involves genetics and how they work.  This is important to us because it is us.  Genetics are what determine anything that is living.  They are what distinguish each of us as different people down to our sex.  So for this class we specifically looked at how genes are passed down form parents to their offspring.  Traits get passed on from your parents, one from your dad and one from your mom.  Let's take hair color as a n example: Let's say B is the dominant gene for brown hair and b is the recessive trait for blonde hair.  Now your parents both have two genes for this trait because they got one from each of their parents.  Lets say your parents Bb and bb.  That means you have a 50% Chance of being Bb and 50% chance of being bb in other words you could be brown haired or blonde haired.  Recessive traits like blonde hair in the example only show up if both of your genes are that, if a dominant allele is present whether it is one or two, will show.  That is why it is called the dominant gene.  The first person to see these alleles and apply them was Mendel who bread pea plants and observed generations and how certain genes would show in them.  He would look at height, color, etc. and see how these traits would pass through in generations of pea plants.  This is how humans and all animals differ from one to another.