Your mission this week is to do some work about cool, unusual, or especially threatening traits that are passed from parent to offspring.
Please do some research, then share what you find with us here.
Have fun!
Monday, January 18, 2010
Weekly Report #6 - Cool Traits - Period 6
Your mission this week is to do some work about cool, unusual, or especially threatening traits that are passed from parent to offspring.
Please do some research, then share what you find with us here.
Have fun!
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Webbed Toes.
I have found that their are some very milled cases of webbed toes. Webbed toes are stuck together by a small flap of tissue that keeps the toes together. Webbed toes are caused mainly by the flap of skin not disappear during development. This birth defect runs in families and is inherited by the next child. Anyone with the gene has a 50-50 chance of passing it on. Webbed toes do not affect athletic ability at all, but they do not make it any easier to swim. It is reported that one in every 2,000 to 2,500 births are recorded to have webbed toes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webbed_feet
This is an example of webbed toes. this case is more complete than others. by complete i mean that the flap of skin goes farther up the toes than more milled cases.
Traits Blog Assignment (Extra Credit)
I read about a very unusual trait about a family in Bhubaneshwar India. The trait that passes down from family to family is the physical appearance of a pre-historic man (They also have the traits of an animal). Because of it this girl has it and it is hard for them to go out and face the world. The family has been pleading to the government to allow an operation on the girl because they cannot afford it themselves. I found this trait to be very interesting and unusual.
http://ww.smashits.com/video/snoop/4287/family-resembles-the-unusual-traits.html
The Achoo Syndrome" The Achoo Syndrome {also known as a 'photic sneeze reflex' or the 'helio-ophthalmic outburst syndrome'} is when someone with this disease is exposed quickly from dark areas of light to high exposure of light {i.e. dark corner to bright sunlight}, they begin to sneeze violently and uncontrollably, usual for 2-3 sneezes, in some cases, up to 40! This is actually one of the more common hereditary dieseaes. In one study, 23% of a group of students had this reflex. Mutation of certain chromosomes are what causes this syndrome to take affect. If you have the mutated chromosome, you have a 50:50 chance of passing it on to your offspring. {http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=15801 and http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=11974}
Traits (extra credit)
I found out about how certain sleep disorders are related to genetics. But the odd thing is that it doesn’t affect them they’ll sleep no more than six hours a day and stay perfectly healthy. There is a story about this lady that is sixty years old and has never slept more than six hours a day in her entire life and is perfectly healthy. Also, she has passed it onto her now 44 year old daughter as well who goes to bed at 10 PM and will wake up at 4 AM. They both have a rare genetic mutation called DEC2 which causes the people that have it to require less sleep. This mutation is found in 1 out of every 60 families.
forgot sorry
http://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/news/20090813/gene-cuts-sleep-need
Personality Traits Associated With Stress and Worry Can Be Hazardous To Your Health
The article that I read about was how personality traits that are associated with stress and worry can be very dangerous for our health, and sometimes might even cause death. According to some scientists who study child development, they learned that higher levels of neuroticism (depression or anxiety) can lead to earlier death. Scientists have also found that people who have worrying tendencies, or the kind of person who get stressed easily is more likely to lead to bad behavior like smoking for example, and that raises the mortality rate. Scientists say that the work they researched is a reminder that high levels of some personality traits inherited can be harmful to a person’s physical health. I learned that people who have a lot of anxiety, turn to drugs and tobacco and they think that will be good for them, but in the end it only risks their lives.
I found that this article was very interesting, but it also seemed creepy because having a trait that you inherit from your parents that can be life threatening seems very horrible. Having scientists research more in depth about neuroticism is a good thing, because it is getting people aware of the fact on what can happen if a person does have this trait of being stressed and depressed easily. If people know someone that has neuroticism, then because of the information that scientists are providing, they can do something to try and stop the bad behavior that might occur. I think that by reading about these traits it’s helpful in understanding more about the genetic topic. It shows that there is a lot of variety of traits that people can inherit, and it also shows that the traits we inherit can be good for us but in some cases, they can also harm us.
Color Blindness
Color Blindness is in out genes, there is no cure.
Color Blindness is a recessive trait. Color Blindness is the inability to see the difference between colors. Color Blindness is mostly genetic but it can also happen because of eye, nerve, or brain damage. It can also happen because of exposure to different chemicals. John Dalton wrote the first scientific paper on color blindness in 1798. Some people that are color blind have an advantage to normal color vision. Being color blind doesnt mean you cant see colors. Some people think that color blindness is evolutionary.
Tay-Sachs disease (TSD)
This disease is a recessive trait that is extremely rare. It is caused by a genetic mutation of the HEXA gene in the 15th chromosome. This is passed down through very few familys. TSD is an autosomal recessive genetic disorder which means that if both parents are carriers, they have a 25% chance to pass it on to their child. The reason that I picked this was because I thought it was interesting how affected children usually only live for 3-4 years. People with TSD have noticeably impaired physical and mental skills. This mutation is the most common in the ashkenazi jewish population, and in a few cajun familes in southern louisiana.
Some traits I found was from the Kuwaiti family. Some where IUGR, laxity of ligaments, hyperextensible joints, redundant skin folds, severe normocytic anaemia, repeated infection, increased percentage of total T cells, and lots more.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1051057/
One trait I found was the eye color trait. The article I read said that blue eyes were recessive, and anything else (non-blue) is dominant. In a different article, I found the following:
-long eyelashes are dominant over short eyelashes
-almond shaped eyes are dominant over round eyes
-having hair on the back of your hand is dominant to having no hair
-having an oval face is dominant over a square face
http://faculty.southwest.tn.edu/jiwilliams/Human_Traits.htm
color blindness is a trait mainly found in men. Women have 2 X chromosones, and at least one will cary the allele for normal vision. Men only have one X chromosone, so if they have the allele for color blindness they will probably be color blind.
http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/begin/traits/activities/pdfs/Inherited%20Human%20Traits%20Quick%20Reference_Public.pdf
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