personal genomics; eye color; sexual selection: cognitive vs genetic
If I get my DNA sequenced at 23andMe or DecodeMe, what information do I get? Is my privacy safe?
If my parents do it too, will it tell me where recombination happened in each chromosome? Btw, does anyone know of a visualization of the chromosomes showing some genes (and corresponding phenotypes)?
Kinda like this but more general-purpose and for laypeople.
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Apparently, there is uncertainty about exactly which chromosomes contain genes related to eye color. GNXP.
As much as I dislike popsci, being a layman, this looks like the best explanation that I can understand (of the ones I could find through Google) of the fact that two blue-eyed parents can have a brown-eyed child: Eye color is a complex trait that depends on the state of several interacting genes. The gene that usually decides the issue (blue eyes or brown eyes) is the OCA2 gene on chromosome 15. But it comes in different strengths. A person with a weak form of the OCA2 gene will have blue eyes. Likewise a person with a strong form will have brown eyes.
The plot thickens, though, because an individual also has other eye-color genes that each has a say in the final eye-color outcome. For example, if one of these lesser genes is strong, it can make the weak form (blue) of OCA2 work much more effectively - almost like the strong form (brown). Then the eye color may be a light brown or muddy grey. In fact, the resulting color can be any shade of brown, hazel/green, or blue depending on the strengths of the interactions.
Of course, there's mutation, but I'd expect that to be too rare to explain this phenomenon.
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Now, blue-blue couples almost always have blue-eyed kids. This article is about the theory that blue-eyed men are more attracted to blue-eyed women because cheating would be easy to catch... of course, this wouldn't be that useful in populations where >%80 of the men are blue-eyed (and most of the others are heterozygotes).
So should we expect this effect to be stronger in more mixed populations? I imagine so; not because the blue-eyed men in those regions have stronger genes for blue-eye preference (this is bordering on silly), but because sexual attraction has a cognitive component. (The cognitive theory predicts adaptation within 1 generation; the natural selection theory would require many. But my main reason for believing the former is that the idea of such a specific gene sounds silly.)
In any case, this suggests that blue-eyed kids have enjoyed more paternal attention than brown-eyed kids.
The natural selection theory (though I'm not sure if anyone believes it) would be an instance of a common fallacy: "there's a gene for everything, no matter how specific".
If my parents do it too, will it tell me where recombination happened in each chromosome? Btw, does anyone know of a visualization of the chromosomes showing some genes (and corresponding phenotypes)?
Kinda like this but more general-purpose and for laypeople.
---
Apparently, there is uncertainty about exactly which chromosomes contain genes related to eye color. GNXP.
As much as I dislike popsci, being a layman, this looks like the best explanation that I can understand (of the ones I could find through Google) of the fact that two blue-eyed parents can have a brown-eyed child: Eye color is a complex trait that depends on the state of several interacting genes. The gene that usually decides the issue (blue eyes or brown eyes) is the OCA2 gene on chromosome 15. But it comes in different strengths. A person with a weak form of the OCA2 gene will have blue eyes. Likewise a person with a strong form will have brown eyes.
The plot thickens, though, because an individual also has other eye-color genes that each has a say in the final eye-color outcome. For example, if one of these lesser genes is strong, it can make the weak form (blue) of OCA2 work much more effectively - almost like the strong form (brown). Then the eye color may be a light brown or muddy grey. In fact, the resulting color can be any shade of brown, hazel/green, or blue depending on the strengths of the interactions.
Of course, there's mutation, but I'd expect that to be too rare to explain this phenomenon.
---
Now, blue-blue couples almost always have blue-eyed kids. This article is about the theory that blue-eyed men are more attracted to blue-eyed women because cheating would be easy to catch... of course, this wouldn't be that useful in populations where >%80 of the men are blue-eyed (and most of the others are heterozygotes).
So should we expect this effect to be stronger in more mixed populations? I imagine so; not because the blue-eyed men in those regions have stronger genes for blue-eye preference (this is bordering on silly), but because sexual attraction has a cognitive component. (The cognitive theory predicts adaptation within 1 generation; the natural selection theory would require many. But my main reason for believing the former is that the idea of such a specific gene sounds silly.)
In any case, this suggests that blue-eyed kids have enjoyed more paternal attention than brown-eyed kids.
The natural selection theory (though I'm not sure if anyone believes it) would be an instance of a common fallacy: "there's a gene for everything, no matter how specific".