How You Got To Be You: A Refresher Course In Genetics

How You Got to Be You: A Refresher Course in GeneticsThe gene is the basic unit of heredity. Different arrangements of genes make ducks, oranges, spiders, bacteria, flatworms and humans. In our case, human genes are arranged in 23 pairs of chromosomes, found in all human cells with the exception of sex cells---egg and sperm---which receive only one randomly selected chromosome from each pair. There is often gene swapping between a pair of chromosomes before that selection is made.When fertilizat...