Posts Tagged ‘Gene’

Baldness In Humans Is A Dominant, Sex-influenced Trait. This Gene Is On The Autosomes, Not The Sex Chromosomes

Friday, September 18th, 2009

Baldness in humans is a dominant, sex-influenced trait. This gene is on the autosomes, not the sex chromosomes, but how it is expressed is influenced by the person’s sex (due to hormones present, etc.). A man who is BB or Bb will be bald and will be non-bald only if he is bb. A woman will only be bald if she is BB and non-bald if she is Bb or bb (it’s almost like B is dominant in males and b is dominant in females). Actually, because of the influence of other sex-related factors, most women who are BB never become totally bald like men do, but rather, their hair becomes “thin” or sparse.
If two parents are heterozygous for baldness, what are the chances of their children being bald?
Use a Punnett square to illustrate this. Note: because the sex of a person does make a difference in how the gene is expressed, you need to set this up as a dihybrid cross to account for the sex of the children.

If One Out Of Ten People Are Gay, How Many People Carry The “gay Gene”?

Friday, September 11th, 2009

I am ONLY looking for a statistical answer given the assumptions below. If you do not agree with the assumptions, wether for political/religious reasons or because they are oversimplified (and I admit, they are) DO NOT RESPOND!!!
The assumptions:
1. The population is one hundred straight couples – 100 men, 100 women. Each woman is going to give birth to one child within nine months.
2. Exactly 50 children will be boys and 50 children will be girls.
3. Exactly 5 boys and 5 girls will be gay.
4. The “gay gene” is recessive
AND
5. carried only on the X chromosome, not the Y. (Like male pattern baldness.)
6. None of the parents-to-be know that the gene exists.
Obviously, a minimum of 10 women and 5 men must carry the gene. But how many parents total must carry the recessive gene for 10 gay children to result from pairing up RANDOMLY?