While everyone is raving over the 2014 World Cup, and they physically gifted Jeremy Meeks, I feel inspired to talk about...beauty. I didn't really feel like talking about the physics of soccer, so I decided to give my spiel on genetics and beauty.
To begin, you need to understand a few basic concepts. You may recall learning about Punnett Square in biology. Remember, you crossed Xx and XX to figure out what offspring would be like. Unfortunately, not all genes work quite like this. Don't get me wrong, the Punnett Square is very useful in teaching the principles of random assortment. However, many phenotypes are generated using multiple genes at different loci. A wonderful example is seen in blue eye coloring. Just about everyone who has taken biology knows that blue eye coloring is a mutation, and it is recessive, meaning that in the presence of, say, brown eye color alleles, it would not be expressed. Theoretically, in a blue eyed person had a baby with a non-blue eyed person, that baby would most likely not have blue eyes. However, if the non-blue eyed person had an unexpressed blue color allele, they have a 50% chance of producing a blue eyed child. This does not take into account the presence of multiple genes controlling one phenotype. With so many eye colors, skin colors, hair types, and other bodily features, you have to wonder just how many different genes colors just one trait.
Even more mind blowing is the fact that most genes are over 500 base pairs long. In fact, the average human gene length is 10-15 kbp. That's kilo base pairs. That means the average gene length in people is 10,000-15,000 base pairs. Remember that one base pair is one bond between the adenines and thymines or guanines and cytosines. Consider that the recent estimate of genes in the human genome is 20,000-25,000. You now have millions of genes. A seemingly infinite amount of base pairs. And how many of those code for your eye color? Your liver functions? One change in those base pairs could make a vast change in any organism. Or it might not at all, because like many machines today, genomes account for mistakes down the line. So if a gene were interrupted, it might not make any difference because another gene could make up for the loss.
So what does this have to do with beauty?
Consider, if you will, that we possess this DNA copy in nearly every one of the cells in our body. Different studies say different things. Some suggest that we are attracted to those whose DNA, or perhaps just their immune system coding, is different from ours to produce the most resilient offspring. I know I definitely look for that in a mate, don't you? (insert corny laughter) However, a new study suggests that we look for people just like us. I know my boyfriend shares very little with me other than our interests. Perhaps in some areas of science, no general norm can be found. Should we stop trying to create an average person? If every study is saying different things about human behavior, how can we define what should be happening?
Maybe beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
To begin, you need to understand a few basic concepts. You may recall learning about Punnett Square in biology. Remember, you crossed Xx and XX to figure out what offspring would be like. Unfortunately, not all genes work quite like this. Don't get me wrong, the Punnett Square is very useful in teaching the principles of random assortment. However, many phenotypes are generated using multiple genes at different loci. A wonderful example is seen in blue eye coloring. Just about everyone who has taken biology knows that blue eye coloring is a mutation, and it is recessive, meaning that in the presence of, say, brown eye color alleles, it would not be expressed. Theoretically, in a blue eyed person had a baby with a non-blue eyed person, that baby would most likely not have blue eyes. However, if the non-blue eyed person had an unexpressed blue color allele, they have a 50% chance of producing a blue eyed child. This does not take into account the presence of multiple genes controlling one phenotype. With so many eye colors, skin colors, hair types, and other bodily features, you have to wonder just how many different genes colors just one trait.
Even more mind blowing is the fact that most genes are over 500 base pairs long. In fact, the average human gene length is 10-15 kbp. That's kilo base pairs. That means the average gene length in people is 10,000-15,000 base pairs. Remember that one base pair is one bond between the adenines and thymines or guanines and cytosines. Consider that the recent estimate of genes in the human genome is 20,000-25,000. You now have millions of genes. A seemingly infinite amount of base pairs. And how many of those code for your eye color? Your liver functions? One change in those base pairs could make a vast change in any organism. Or it might not at all, because like many machines today, genomes account for mistakes down the line. So if a gene were interrupted, it might not make any difference because another gene could make up for the loss.
So what does this have to do with beauty?
Consider, if you will, that we possess this DNA copy in nearly every one of the cells in our body. Different studies say different things. Some suggest that we are attracted to those whose DNA, or perhaps just their immune system coding, is different from ours to produce the most resilient offspring. I know I definitely look for that in a mate, don't you? (insert corny laughter) However, a new study suggests that we look for people just like us. I know my boyfriend shares very little with me other than our interests. Perhaps in some areas of science, no general norm can be found. Should we stop trying to create an average person? If every study is saying different things about human behavior, how can we define what should be happening?
Maybe beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
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