Coin Sex Lab Conclusion

In this lab, we used coins to simulate the randomness of chromosomes that go into sex. In meiosis, the chromosomes are split twice and make four new haploid cells. Each new haploid cell carries two alleles for each trait and one of these haploid cells actually participates in recombination. When we flipped the coins, we were simulating one of the four haploid cells, produced by meiosis, being chosen to have sex. The haploid cell that goes into sex gives those genes their offspring. To hypothesize about our results in this lab, we used probability to determine how likely different results were. Our expected results were exactly the same as our actual results for our dihybrid cross simulation. From this data I can conclude that alleles do indeed segregate independently, however some alleles tend to be inherited together, shown by the brown hair and brown eyes traits that were inherited together 9 out of 16 times. During our monohybrid simulation, we tested homozygous and heterozygous alleles having sex. Our results were very similar to our predictions. The limit of using probability is that one can only determine the probability of something happening and can never know for sure. For example if there is a 25% chance that your child will have a disorder, its a low probability, however, it is still entirely possible. Inheritance can also occur in two ways. Autosomal inheritance is when traits are inherited from one of the 44 non-sex chromosomes, such as the genes for bipolar disorder. X-linked inheritance is when traits are inherited from one of the 2 sex chromosomes, such as the genes for colorblindness. This can related to my life because I live among color blind people, and people with other disorders. This information can shift my world view on people because sex leaves you stuck and its not people's fault that they are disabled, they are the way they are simply because of sex and probability.