George and His Genes

By Kiersten Inkley

This is little George, George is ten years old. One day George was looking at a picture of his family when he

realized he looked nothing like them.

Tommy noticed a few things, first he had blonde hair while no one else in his family did. His family also had green eyes while he had blue. His dad and sister

had darker skin while he and his mom were pale.

“Mom, why don’t I look like the rest of our family?” little George asked. “Well George there could be a lot of reasons, what specifically have noticed was different?” George’s mother asked.“Well why are daddy and Georgina tan while me and you are pale?” George asked”

“Well George, remember how your father and Georgina went to Florida to visit your grandma last week?” George’s mother asked.

“Yeah Momma” George responded. “Well that was was created by their environment because the sun

darkened the melanin in their skin to try and protect them from the sun.”

“Wow, cool!”

“Why do you all have green eyes eyes?” George wondered.“Well son, I wear colored contacts but my eyes are actually blue so biology had nothing to do with that. However your dad and sister have them because of their genes.” George’s mom explains.“Momma, what are genes?” George asked. “Well George genes are a unit of heredity which is like the instructions on whether to make proteins and molecules So these genes are what controls what physical traits you have.” George’s mother explained. “There are recessive and dominant traits . A dominant gene is a gene that would definitely be expressed over a recessive gene that gets forgotten about.

“Which eye colors are dominant?” George questioned.“Well George only brown eye are dominant and all the other colors are recessive so you had a 50/50 chance of getting either color” Georges momma said.

“Why doesn’t my nose look like yours or dads, Georgina’s nose looks like dads, shouldn’t mine?” George asked.“Well George, Georgina got your dad’s nose but you got my nose, you can’t tell anymore because my nose looked different before I had surgery to fix my deviated septum.” George’s mother stated.“What is that?” George asked, confused.“It’s when that bone and cartilage that splits our nasal cavity in half is severely crooked or tilted and it make it hard to breath when you have one, any injuries or illnesses can change your physical traits.” George’s mother told him.

“What about Georgina and I? I thought since we are twins we would look alike.” George wonders. “Actually there are two types of twins, fraternal and identical. Fraternal twins are just like any other siblings, the were made by two different eggs and so the each have their own genetic code. Identical twins come from one egg, and end up with the exact same genetic code. You and Georgina are fraternal twins so you do not have the same genetic code.” George’s mom explains

“So there are a lot of things that make us look different?” George asked.“Yes son, but just remember even if we do not look alike we are a family anyway.

THE END