Naked Science Forum
Life Sciences => Physiology & Medicine => Topic started by: thedoc on 17/04/2015 21:50:01
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helvihaipumbu asked the Naked Scientists:
I helvi I want to know which skin colour is dominant? Is that possible for white parents to give birth to black baby?
What do you think?
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helvihaipumbu asked the Naked Scientists:
I helvi I want to know which skin colour is dominant? Is that possible for white parents to give birth to black baby?
What do you think?
Yes, and vise versa. Some very famous and tragic cases
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1093674/The-tragic-story-white-girl-born-black-tore-family-apart.html
I don't believe that any of the genes for skin colour are dominant, so any mix is possible. In fact no one is pure one way or the other, we are all mixed.
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Human skin color (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_skin_color) is determined by the amount of pigment (melanin) in the skin. There are several forms of melanin.
The skin color is determined by many factors, including the environment (sun exposure), and several genes (and probably also by some epigenetic controls). The genes can be inherited independently (and some epigenetic controls can skip a generation). So, on average, you would expect the skin color of a child to be intermediate between the skin color of the parents, although that average hides a large amount of variation.
Chimerism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimera_%28genetics%29#Humans) could account for some cases of white parents giving birth to a black baby. The presence of chimerism can be detected with modern genetic tests.
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helvihaipumbu asked the Naked Scientists:
Is that possible for white parents to give birth to black baby?
What do you think?
Absolutely, if the baby is conceived by IVF and either the egg or sperm donor is black.