fandomhigh | Science is Awesome!!!, Class #6, Period 3, February 8th

"This week, we're talking genetics," Rikku said. "Genetics is the study of genes. Genes are the way that information is passed down from your parents, and their parents, and it all gets expressed in you."

"That's not to get into a weird conversation about nature and nurture, or whether having crazy parents means you're going to end up crazy," she added, quickly. "We're talking about things like physical traits, mostly. I mean, you might be predisposed to certain things, but free will is pretty awesome, yeah?"

Said the cranky atheist, anyway.

"Let's talk about eyes. Although eyes are way more complicated than this, and this is a huge oversimplification, this is still a neat place to start, okay? Basically, a lot of times, you have two copies of something -- the one you got from your mom, and the one you got from your dad. Maybe your dad has brown eyes, and your mom has blue eyes, so you get a marker for brown and a marker for blue. How does that settle out? Well. Blue is what they call 'recessive,' which means if it's paired with brown, brown wins. Blue only gets expressed if it's with another marker for blue. So you'd end up having brown eyes, but you'd be a 'carrier' for blue."

She turned to the board and wrote "Bb" on it. "The big B is brown, since it's dominant, and the little b is for blue. So now! Let's say you meet someone, and they're a brown-eyed sweetie who's a carrier for blue, too."

Rikku was now drawing out a tic-tac-toe board on the chalkboard, and filling it in with various Bs and bs.

"Remember, you get one copy of anything from your mom, and one from your dad. Is it going to be the big-B, or the little-b? That's a fifty-fifty chance. So what does this square tell us?"

She pointed at the four spots, in turn. "This first square, with two capital Bs? This kid has brown eyes and isn't a carrier for blue at all. There are two kids with a capital-B and a small-b; those kids are gonna be brown-eyed carriers just like you and your honey. And then the last square is just little bs, which means the kid is gonna have blue eyes, even though neither of you do."

She smiled at everyone. "You probably won't have four kids that line up like that -- it's about probability. 50% chance of the same thing, another carrier for blue. 25% of brown with no carrier, and 25% of blue. If you're interested in what happens with different combinations -- like a non-carrier having kids with someone who is? You can draw out your own square and see the results. It's kind of neat."

"You might also be wondering why this matters. Who cares what color eyes your kids will have?" She shrugged. "We started with eyes because they're easy to understand. The same square works if we're talking about people who are healthy carriers for a horrible, crippling disease. There's a 25% chance their kid will have it. And if you follow that line of reasoning out? Then you'll see why it's such a bad idea for family members to breed, or for small populations not to pull outsiders in for generations and generations. Because when you have kids with someone just like you, then you have all the same weaknesses and recessive traits being expressed. There are some diseases that are uncommon in the population at large, but frequent in certain enclosed communities -- because so many people are carriers, now, and having kids with other carriers."

"One last thing. Genetics is complicated, and beyond that, there are always places where things branch off strangely -- genetic mutations, which can be bad, or good, or neither, just something that is. My people, we're a closed-off community, too, and we all have the same weird trait with our eyes: spiral pupils. When we have kids with outsiders, they don't have the pupils any more, which hints that it's recessive."

She set the chalk down and dusted her hands off. "If you want to pester me after class and take a peek at my eyes, that's totally fine by me. In the meantime, let's talk about genetics."

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

With a relative.

Take notes, pass them, doodle some Punnett squares.

"I want you to tell me something you got from your parents," Rikku said. "Like, with me, there's my eyes. And Pop says I'm the same spitfire my mom was, even though I think she was kinda way more kickass. And I'm not sure where my older brother got his case of the stupids. Maybe he was dropped on his head."

"Considering all this," Rikku said, nodding to the board, "what can people in closed communities do, in order to make sure they're not passing the same recessive traits to their own kids? And is this maybe why incest is considered so ucky by people, instinctively? As a protective measure?"

If he's here!

She's perfectly serious. You can ask to see her weird-ass Al Bhed eyes.

Image swiped from http://www.jackrussell.ch, which seems to be a site about terriers, but had a nice clear google hit for a Punnett square.

Also, much love to my N-person today, and he knows why. ♥

William Murdoch

William... would prefer to think he didn't have anything at all in common with his father, honestly.

"From what I recall, my hair is the same colour as my mother's," he offered.

Unlike yesterday, William was not skipping out on classes today. Which was good since he had a TAship to uphold and everything.

Harper Finkle

"I got my red hair from my mom," said Harper. "But I think my flair for the dramatic came from both of my parents, if that's something that can genetically be passed on."

"I've got my mom's hair color, too! Small world, right?" Harper pointed out with a grin.

Hank Venture

Hank doodled some Punnett squares and then used them to play tic-tac-toe against himself.

He lost.

Juliet Darling

"People say I have my mom's nose and her smile," Juliet ventured lightly. She didn't think she especially looked like either of her parents, but then none of the Darling siblings looked that much alike.

"I got... I dunno. I'm nothing like my dad. My brother got everything from him, and maybe I'm just the stuff that's left over. Like Danny DeVito in that one movie. I'm Danny DeVito!!!"

"They can... open their communities?" Hank asked. He wasn't all that sure. "Sometimes they abduct outsiders for scary sex rituals!"

Hey, you.

♥

"So is mine," Rikku said with a grin. "But then most of my people are blonde, so it's probably not as cool, in my case."

She had no idea if her father was blonde, though. He'd been bald as long as she could remember.

"Maybe," Rikku said. "I mean, that's the heart of the nature-vs-nurture issue, you know? Like, maybe you're like that because they are, and you learned it, or maybe you all have those tendencies, and choose to express them. Maybe even a little of both."

"Noses are neat," Rikku said. "I mean, there can't be just a single gene for it, since noses are all so different, but then you get families and you can line them up and see the same facial features just keep popping out at you."

"Are you sure?" Rikku asked. "I mean, about being nothing like him? Because I used to think that, but someone told me that I'm just as pig-headed stubborn as he is, and they're right. Maybe it's harder for you to see, that's all."

"The opening part is good," Rikku said. "Sex rituals ... kinda not so much? But they can make an effort to bring in outsiders, ones whose genes won't have the same recessive tendencies. Though hopefully through looser boundaries and not, uh, the abduction thing."

Hank waved her off dismissively. "Pffft. Whatever. You don't know me. And my pop's a jerk."

"I didn't say it was good," Hank pointed out. "Just that they do it."

Although, strictly speaking, abducting certain outsiders meant that those closed communities ended up with LESS genetic diversity afterward. Some were even wiped out entirely. You don't mess with Brock Samson.

Lindsay Weir

Lindsay didn't really have to think too hard about this. "I get the dark hair from my dad. My mom's hair is sorta reddish."

"It's something to think about, especially since I spend more time with my friend Alex and her family than with my own parents," said Harper. "It's been like that since Alex and I were in kindergarten. And the Russos are nothing like my family. I mean, they actually get along with each other!"

Momoko Akatsutsumi

Okay, now Momoko was wondering if her Powerpuff Girl Z powers would be inherited or not.

Chloe Saunders

Science is Awesome!!!, Class #6, Period 3, February 8th

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