What Are Some Interesting Aspects of Human Genetics?

Are you looking for some interesting aspects of human genetics? There are many different facts about human genetics - from how genetics shapes our lives to the research projects and experiments that scientists are doing to better understand human genetics. Read on to learn more about just a few of the most interesting aspects of human genetics.

Understanding the basics of human genetics is the first step to understanding why and how human genetics is interesting. Human genetics is the study of the complex make up of the human body.

The study of human genetics is necessary and interesting for many reasons:

• Studying human genetics can help doctors develop stronger and better medications for certain conditions that many common antibiotics and other medications have become obsolete or that modern medicine is, as yet, unable to treat.
• The study of human genetics can also lead to breakthrough discoveries. For instance, it will hopefully be through this type of science that one day a cure will be found for incurable diseases, such as cancer and AIDS.
• Understanding every cell within the human body and knowing how those cells work is an essential part of learning more about human beings, our bodies, and what goes wrong and right within our bodies.

Studying Human Genetics

There are many aspects of human genetics that you may find interesting. For instance:

• Did you know that a scientist and Augustinian abbot by the name of Gregor Mendel was the first to study human genetics?
• In 1865 he performed the first ever study to see how traits were passed on between plants.
• Mendel is often referred to as being the Father of Genetics and he was the first to discover that all genes follow certain laws.
• It is the fact that these laws of genetics followed within the human body that allow for traits to be inherited from one generation to the next.

Types of Genes

Many of the interesting aspects of human genetics have to do with knowing more about your genes:

• Scientists have discovered that there are two types of genes within the human body.
• There are autosomes, which are genes that have nothing to do with the gender of a child, and then there are the X and Y chromosomes.
• During the conception of a fetus, it is the X and Y chromosomes that will dictate the gender of the child when it is born.
• Autosomes define every other trait that forms during the growing process over the nine months.
• For instance, autosomes are responsible for the determination of hair color, eye color.
• Autosomal dominant traits are more likely to appear and shape every feature of a newly born baby. These dominant genes and traits are passed on from the parent.
• In fact, dominant traits determined by these types of genes will almost always beat out the non-dominant gene.

The study of human genetics has also shown the medical world and other parts of the science world that the human body is not made up complete of nuclear DNA and that each of us is also made up of mitochondrial DNA. Mitochondria DNA is always inherited directly from the mother.

These are just a few interesting aspects of human genetics. Visit the website for the National Institutes of Health for many more interesting facts.