Choices! What will it be? #73

We gotta thank Gregor Mendel for establishing the foundation of classical genetics.

Genetics is the transfer of genes from parents to their offspring that is later shown in different traits like height, color, hair, and weight.

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Mr. Mendel was proactive and experimented on pea plants to get different and desired traits.

Therefore he crossed one round yellow seed plant with one wrinkled green seed plant.

He wanted diversity in their shapes and colors.

The first generation had all the yellow round plants. Because of dominant alleles, which are present in the form of pairs of each chromosome.

Alleles can be dominant or recessive and involved in the physical structure/phenotype/appearance.

Here yellow round was the dominant allele and green wrinkled was the recessive allele.

However, when he crossed the offspring of the first generation he got different results:

Offsprings having:

• Round and yellow(Original ancestors, dominant alleles both)
• Round and green (recessive allele for color)
• Wrinkled yellow(recessive allele for shape)
• Wrinkled green (recessive alleles both)

He succeeded in getting different traits when he crossed seeds that were different.

He proposed his law: Mendel's law of Independent assortment.

In easy words, offspring weren't bound to their parent's genes forever. They were independent to show different traits in 2nd generation.

Humans took inspiration from him and started a crossing business in different communities.

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We know what good genetics is. If you have good height, hair, and fair skin color then definitely you have good genes( as a matter of fact in Asia).

A family that has children of short or average height tends to find a cross with a person of good height to end the generation of dwarfs.

Those who have tanned children prefer to find a fair person to get offspring like snow white.

Speaking of Europe, they have a classic example of good genes.

A cross between a blonde with a black-haired person:
lady Diana and Prince Charles. They had this cross to get Diana's genes(beauty).

Charles was seen responding to an answer about whether William looked like him.

He answered: he is lucky enough not to.

Excuse my racism, I'm not saying this is wrong.

In fact, it's good to have a cross between people of different traits. It makes our immune system strong and prevents many diseases, which are seen in people having cross with the same traits.

For instance: in cousin marriages, people face diseases more often.

However, genetics is not just what you see in a person. It's not just what you get from your mother's womb. It's not just what your mother ate and did intellectually during her pregnancy.

It's also what you get from your environment after you are born.

It's Nature(gene) and also Nurture(environment)

Our genetic is how genes are passed to us.
Our nurture is how those genes are expressed in the future.

Here comes Epigenetics:

It is the phenomenon of how your behaviors and environment can cause changes that affect the way your genes work. Unlike mutations, epigenetic changes are reversible and don't change the sequence of DNA bases, but they can change how your body reads a DNA sequence.

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It explains how early childhood experiences can modify gene expression that controls diseases and behavior problems in later life.

Scientists experimented on rats to see how maternal care after their pup's birth influences their genes.

There were two pups, one got licking and high grooming from his mother while another pup did get less grooming.

One had experienced love and bond with their mother in early life while the other didn't.

Many years later they saw its effect on their behavior and lifestyle.

The pup getting groomed had less stress, didn't binge eat which is a disorder, and was more calm, and happy in their life.

While the pup getting none sucked into life.

Epigenetics studied that there was a genomic change in the pup when he got maternal care. The receptor gene glucocorticoid which was inactive at the time of birth got activated when his mother licked him.

This GR gene controls development, metabolism, and immune responses which control diseases in the future.

Those with inactivated GR genes are more prone to stress and behavior issues.

You see Gene was there but it couldn't bring any change or good to that poor pup.

You don't have poor genes, you're just in a poor environment, and that changes how you look

In humans, those who don't get their parents' love, attention, and touch in early life become drug addicts in later life, commit suicide or develop autism.

In a classic Pakistani drama, Tanhaiyaan, the heroine Zara has anxiety issues and fear of the unknown she got from her mother, even when everything was going smoothly in her life.

This is how your mother's love can change your gene expression.