What's a great genetics question? I need help, please! :]?

Question

Hi, I'm having trouble thinking of a really good genetics question for science. I have a few, but I don't think they are good enough. It should be similar to this: "Are seedless grapes the cause of a mutation?" OR "Two midgets can have a normal sized baby, why is this possible?" OR "Is color blindness caused by a mutation?" If you have any ideas, please post them, or if you think the first or third question is really good, please feel free to tell me. Websites with information would be helpful, too! Thanks everyone! :D

Answer 1

a person who inherits a defective chromosome 15 from their mother (and a normal chromosome 15 from their father) can develop a disease called angelman syndrome. a person who inherits the identical defective chromosome 15 from their father (and a normal chromosome 15 from their mother) will develop a different disease called prader-willi syndrome. how can this occur? this is an example of a phenomenon called imprinting, and is thought to be due to differential modification of the dna (called cytosine methylation or cpg methylation) between maternal and paternal copies of chromosome 15.

huntington's disease seems to develop earlier and seems to be more severe as it is passed from one generation to the next. how can this occur? this is an example of a phenomenon called anticipation, where it is thought that mistakes in dna replication and / or repair expand upon previous mistakes from generation to generation.

Answer 2

Here is a question that get's right to the heart of genetics.
Why do we asymetrically/non-randomly inherit elements of chromosome 7? As this goes against Mendel's law, how can we reconsile our longheld views on the founding principles of genetics with this seemingly contradictory observation? How does this tie into the immortal strand hypothesis, whereby scientists have hypothesized that stem cells (all types adult and embryonic) inherit specifically one strand of a chromosome rather than randomly inheriting either parental or maternal strand?

If you like this idea let me know and I would be more than happy to assist you with websites, articles, reviews etc. Best of luck.

Answer 3

You could ask about the suspected mutation that started the prevalence of the hemophilia gene in Queen Victoria's family. It is thought that she might have had a mutation in the hemophilia gene on an X-chromosome. There certainly were a lot of cases of hemophilia in her direct descendents. The royal families have good records of family trees, births, deaths, diseases, so they make good genetic studies.

Answer 4

the first question is kind of .. easy... so is number 3..
number 2 is very good. gets you thinking--- (the midgets must be heterozygous for the dwarf allele)

also you might be able to add some evolution questions like... why is penicillin becoming less and less effective? (ans. antibiotic resistance caused by adaptation)