Most of us were supposed to have learned this in high-school biology, but here's a quick review:
As a big fan of metaphor, I keep wrestling with a good way to describe the complicated mixing of genetics. Half an apple (father) plus half an orange (mamma) and each child is an apple-orange? Erm –– that does not clarify anything.
Maybe a soccer playoff? Two leagues, 46 teams, they have to fall out into half-teams and play the final while paired with an unfamiliar other half-team? Hmm. But what about the goalies? NO! Just nope! Sports metaphors, ratsa fratsa.... Or wait: what if you think of the mom as a margarita –– the good kind, with the top-shelf tequila, Grand Marnier, lime zest, fresh-squeezed Key lime juice, and sea-salt over ice. Which naturally makes the daddy an Old Fashioned, all muddled bitters and sugar, dark rye, a fat twist of orange peel with a maraschino cherry on top. Unzip the spirals, mix, mingle and –– poof! One kid turns out a mix of tequila, bitters and a maraschino cherry. Another is Grand Marnier and rye with orange and lime zest. A third child is a sour mix of lime and bitters and sea-salt. Another... you get the picture. 
That's why you aren't exactly like your sibling (unless you're an identical twin), but instead seem like variants on a theme: Mumsie's near-sighted eyes and Daddo's thick, wavy hair paired with different jawlines and frames. Go to a family reunion and the mixology can be actively unsettling: the shared blond curls, the cousin's toddler child who is a ringer for long-dead great-Gramp Earl, and the vision of your parent's feet at the end of someone else's legs.
Or maybe it's comforting, that ongoing flow of family genes. A river, maybe, even more than a mélange of mixed drinks.
Science Links: genetics.thetech.org/ask/ask128 http://www.genomenewsnetwork.org/resources/whats_a_genome/Chp1_4_2.shtml http:genetics.thetech.org/ask/ask445 https://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/primer/basics/howmanychromosomes
Naturally, there's more to say about the genetic side of genealogy, but this is enough for now, I think.
Which brings me, sideways, to the word "anon." Anon can be short for "anonymous," but it's also an archaic adverb meaning "shortly." As in, I will write more about this anon. The etymology of the word (it strikes me that genealogy is the etymology of a person. Hmm.) gives it an Old English heritage. It meant "into one," which eventually referred to time, as in "at once." I am distracted, it's inevitable, by thinking about how the Old English (700-1100 A.D.) visualized time differently that we do. Until later. Anon.
3 Comments
George A
4/22/2017 10:06:13 am
DNA is actually a rather monotonous molecule--four nucleotide bases conjugated to sugars and strung along a phosphate backbone. DNA lacks the interesting array of side groups which amino acids in proteins sport, and thus the potential for "interesting" chemistry is somewhat limited. In retrospect that's probably a good thing for a molecule who's role in life is that of a script and librarian. Goodness knows the process of copying the info for "distribution" introduces more than enough errors into the library. Most of these copy errors are harmless and go unnoticed. A small handful, however, have severe enough impacts to keep generations of clinical researchers and assorted medical businessmen and women fully employed.
Amy
4/28/2017 08:57:01 am
Hey George
George A
4/28/2017 09:42:46 am
If one accepts the notion of evolution from a common ancestor, then it's not too surprising that species as diverse as elephants, house mice and humans share high percentages of DNA homology. Indeed many aspects of gene expression are conserved across great swaths of biology. At the enzymatic level we share a number of similarities with plants as well: for example, both horse radish and humans demonstrate gene expression for peroxidase. Humans use this enzyme to break down peroxide as a defense against oxidative free radicals generated during the course of normal metabolism. The bombardier beetle, on the other hand, uses peroxidase to squirt on predators (humans, sadly, have lost this useful feature). Although the various organisms we observe have all diverged in order to fill assorted environmental nishes, they all must operate under similar physical conditions of temperature, atmospheric pressure and gas make up, day light length, etc. as dished out by the planet earth. Leave a Reply. |
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