Contents
- 1 Can you change your fetus eye color
- 2 How can I improve my baby’s eyes during pregnancy
- 3 How to get blue eyes naturally
- 4 Can 2 brown eyes make blue-eyed baby
- 5 Which parent decides eye Colour
- 6 How do babies get colored eyes
- 7 Can you change eye color naturally
- 8 What genes are inherited from father only
- 9 How can I predict my baby’s hair color
- 10 What genes are inherited from mother only
- 11 Why some babies are born with blue eyes
Can you change your fetus eye color
Currently, genetic engineering allows us to select our baby’s gender and eye color as well as modify the risk of certain illnesses. In the very near future, however, we could have a say over other more controversial characteristics.
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How can I improve my baby’s eyes during pregnancy
How to support your baby’s vision during pregnancy – Get plenty of beta-carotene, a key nutrient for the healthy development of your baby’s eyes. It’s abundant in yellow, orange, and red fruits and vegetables, like carrots, sweet potatoes, and squash.
Your body converts beta-carotene into vitamin A, which supports your baby’s vision and has benefits for you as well. It helps repair tissues after you give birth, fights infections, supports your immune system, and metabolizes fats. Note: During pregnancy, it’s important not to get too much retinol, a type of vitamin A which can cause birth defects and liver toxicity in high doses.
It’s found in some vitamin supplements and acne medications, (It’s safe to get as much beta-carotene as you want from fruits and vegetables, though.)
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How to get blue eyes naturally
7 Ways to Get Blue Eyes – wikiHow
- Unfortunately, no. Just like your hair and skin color, the color of your iris is genetic. That means that unless you break down your genetic code or cell structure, your eye color cannot be changed permanently without surgery. The color of your eyes is determined by the amount of melanin that your irises contain: very little melanin gives blue eyes, while lots of melanin gives brown eyes.
- Many babies have blue eyes when they’re born because their bodies haven’t created very much melanin yet.
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- Wear blue contact lenses. Contact lenses can give you the appearance of blue eyes without having to change anything physical. To make sure your contact lenses are safe, visit an eye doctor and get a prescription. If you have glasses, you can get prescription colored contact lenses to wear every day.
- Colored contact lenses from home goods or costume stores aren’t safe, and they could damage your eyes. You should always purchase contacts from an eye care professional.
- Yes, you can use browns, oranges and blues to make your eyes look lighter. When you’re picking out eye shadow and eyeliner, go for softer tones like light brown and baby blue instead of black. It will help bring out the blue undertones in your eyes and make your eye color look both lighter and brighter. ‘
- Other complementary eyeshadow colors that can enhance blue eyes include gold, warm orange-browns like peach and copper, red-browns like mauves and plum, and neutrals like taupe or camel.
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- You can also try wearing brown mascara instead of black mascara.
Yes, but it’s a very subtle change. When you feel an intense emotion like anger, sadness, or excitement, your pupils might dilate or contract. This change can influence how your eye color looks just slightly, but they might only turn a shade or two lighter or darker. Advertisement
- No, that’s an urban myth. Some people swear that by mixing honey and hot water and using it as eye drops, you can make your eyes turn blue. However, there is no scientific evidence to back that up, and you can really irritate your eyes that way.
- Your iris is in the center of your eyeball, not the surface. Using eye drops won’t help change the color of your eye because you can’t actually touch your iris.
- The same is true for lemon juice eye drops. You’ll just end up irritating your eyes.
- Yes, but there are many risks to eye color surgery. There are 2 surgical options for changing your eye color: a laser surgery and an iris implant. Both of them come with the risk of inflammation, cataracts, elevated pressure inside your eye, and blindness. In fact, the laser surgery isn’t even approved for use in the United States. If you’re thinking of getting surgery, talk to an eye care professional before you make any decisions.
- Most eye care professionals will discourage you from getting surgery to change your eye color. It’s too dangerous and not worth the risks.
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It could indicate a disease or an illness. Changing eye colors might mean heterochromic iridocyclitis (inflammation of the eye), pigment loss, uveitis (inflammation of the middle eye), or trauma. Any one of these things can lead to blindness and health complications, so you should see a doctor right away if you notice anything strange.
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“This article was very informative and helped me avoid using the honey myth on my eyes.”
: 7 Ways to Get Blue Eyes – wikiHow
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How can a baby have blue eyes if both parents brown?
Is it possible for two brown eyed people to have a child with blue eyes? Editor’s Note (4/14/2021): The following article and diagrams present an over-simplified, outdated version of eye color genetics. Eye color is influenced by at least 50 genes, not all of which are well understood.
- Yes. The short answer is that brown-eyed parents can have kids with brown, blue or virtually any other color eyes.
- Eye color is very complicated and involves many genes.
- To begin to understand how parents with brown eyes could have blue-eyed children, let’s imagine that eye color is due to a single gene, EYCL3, which comes in two versions or alleles, brown ( B ) and blue ( b ).
Remember that for most genes (including eye color), you have two copies of each gene, and that you inherited one from your mother and one from your father. The brown version of the eye color gene ( B ) is dominant over the blue version ( b ). Dominant means that if either of your genes is the B version, then you will have brown eyes.
Genetically speaking, then, people with brown eyes could be either BB or Bb while people with blue eyes could only be bb, Example of a one-gene model for eye color. For two parents with brown eyes to have a blue-eyed child, both parents must genetically be Bb, When this happens, there is a 1 in 4 chance that these parents will have a bb child with blue eyes.
Unfortunately, eye color is not as simple as this. Besides the EYCL3 gene described above, at least two other genes, EYCL1 and EYCL2, are also involved. Although this set of genes explains how people can have green eyes, it does a poor job of explaining how blue-eyed parents could have brown-eyed children or how anyone can have hazel or gray eyes at all.
- To understand green eyes in all of this, we only need to review EYCL1 and EYCL3 (EYCL2 is a poorly understood brown eye color gene).
- Remember, EYCL3 has two versions, brown ( B ) and blue ( b ).
- EYCL1 also comes in two versions, green ( G ) and blue ( b ).
- The way these genes work is that if you have a B allele, you will have brown eyes ( B is dominant over b and G ), if you have a G allele and no B allele, you will have green eyes ( G is dominant over b ) and if you have all b genes, then you will have blue eyes.
Example of a two-gene model for eye color. I hope this helps to answer your question. As you can tell, while some progress has been made, eye color is a very complex, polygenic trait that is not yet fully understood. : Is it possible for two brown eyed people to have a child with blue eyes?
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Can 2 brown eyes make blue-eyed baby
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If both of you have brown eyes, then there is generally a 25% chance that the baby will have blue eyes if both of you carry the recessive blue-eye gene. But if only one of you has a recessive blue-eye gene, and the other has two brown, dominant genes, then there is a less than 1% chance of the baby having blue eyes.
Each person carries two copies of every gene, one copy inherited from mom and one inherited from dad. Homozygous means that the two copies match (for example, maybe both copies are for brown eyes). If someone is heterozygous, it means that the two copies of the gene differ (for example, one for brown and one for non-brown).
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Which parent decides eye Colour
Which parent gives you the most dominant genes? Except for a few special cases (see below), it doesn’t really matter which parent gave you which gene. If a gene version is dominant, it will dominate whether it came from mom or dad. Your chances of getting a dominant trait don’t depend on which parent it came from.
If mom gives you a dominant brown eye version of an eye color gene, odds are you’ll end up with brown eyes. Same thing if dad passes the same gene. In neither case would you have higher odds for getting brown eyes. Now that isn’t to say that if mom has brown eyes then all her kids will too. They could end up with the other parent’s recessive blue or green eyes.
Or an eye color that neither parent has! This is how brown-eyed parents end up with a blue-eyed child. Or how two parents who don’t have red hair have a redheaded baby. As you can see, genetics is a complicated business. But one thing we do know.a child isn’t more likely to favor one parent over the other.
- Which traits you get depend on the combination of genes you get from both parents.
- What I’ll do for the rest of the answer is explain a bit about how genes work.
- Then I’ll focus on some situations where the parents do matter.
- As you’ll see, this is usually when a trait is on the X chromosome.
- Let’s say that a child has a mom with brown eyes and dad with blue eyes.
In general, brown eyes are dominant to blue. That means that if you have the DNA for both brown and blue, you’ll have brown eyes. (I’ll also note that it’s more complicated than I’m about to describe here. But the general pattern holds true, where darker eyes are more dominant than lighter ones.) Since brown eyes are dominant, there are two possibilities for mom.
She can have two copies of the brown version of an eye color gene (” BB “, as geneticists like to say). Or she could have one brown ( B ) and one blue ( b ) version of that gene, or ” Bb “. To make things easier, we will say that she is BB (both genes are the brown version). Since the dad has blue eyes, he has two copies of the recessive blue version.
He is bb, Each parent will pass one copy of their eye color gene to their child. In this case, the mom will always pass B and the dad will always pass b, This means all of their kids will be Bb and have brown eyes. Each child will show the mom’s dominant trait.
Now if we flip things around where the father has two brown versions ( BB ) and the mom has two blue ones ( bb ), the child will still end up Bb and having brown eyes. It doesn’t matter if B came from mom or dad. It only mattered that the child got a B, For most traits it doesn’t matter which side of the family it came from.
I don’t want you to think that if one parent shows the dominant trait, all their children will too. They may not. Let me give another eye color example to show you what I mean. Imagine a mom with one version of the brown and one version of the blue eye color gene.
- She is Bb and has brown eyes.
- Dad is bb and has blue eyes.
- These are the same eye colors that the parents had in the first example.
- But the result could turn out very differently.
- In this example, the kids would each have a 50% chance of having mom’s brown eyes and a 50% chance of having dad’s blue eyes.
(This is because mom has a 50% chance of passing her B and a 50% chance of passing her b,) They could end up with mom’s dominant trait or dad’s recessive one. Which one is a simple matter of chance. And if we take a Bb dad (brown eyes) and a bb mother (blue eyes), there is still a 50% chance for the child to have blue eyes.
- Again it didn’t matter which parent gave which gene version.
- What was important is that these two gene versions were involved.
- Of course, eye color is harder to predict than I’m describing here.
- There’s more than just one gene that affects what color eyes you’ll have! But it’s still a useful example.
- This is true for many, many traits besides eye color.
But not all of them. Sometimes it matters whether your mom or dad has a dominant trait. Through our discussion so far, you may have picked up on the fact that we have two copies of our genes – one from mom and one from dad. But this isn’t true for every gene.
- Whether you are a boy or a girl mostly depends on whether you have an X and a Y chromosome or two X’s.
- If you have an X and a Y, then you are usually a boy.
- If you have two X’s, then you are usually a girl.
- This matters for our discussion because it means that girls (and so moms) have two copies of all the genes on the X chromosome while boys (and dads) have just one.
The genes on mom’s X chromosome will dominate for her sons whether they are dominant or recessive. Let’s look at color blindness as an example to figure out why. Imagine that mom is colorblind. Since being colorblind is recessive, she has two copies of the color blind version of the gene (c).
- Geneticists say she is Xc Xc because the recessive version is on the X chromosome.
- Red-green colorblindness (II) is one of the few traits where it matters which parent the gene came from.
- In our case, dad isn’t color blind.
- Since he has just one X chromosome, he has a single copy of the version of the gene that lets him tell red from green.
He is XC Y, (The XC means he has the dominant version of the color vision gene on his X. The Y has no color vision gene on it and so is here as a marker.) OK, now what happens when these two parents have sons? They are all colorblind like their mother.
Her recessive trait dominates! Let me take you through how this happened. Since the child is a boy, we know dad passed his Y (otherwise the child would be a girl). This doesn’t contribute any color vision genes. Mom will pass one of her Xc’s to her son. The son now has an Xc and a Y. He has no dominant color vision gene version to overcome his color blind version and so is color blind like his mother.
Every son will have that trait. Colorblindness is one of a few special traits where it matters which parent a gene copy came from. For most traits it doesn’t matter. What matters is the combination of genes you get no matter the source. : Which parent gives you the most dominant genes?
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How do babies get colored eyes
Eye color changes over time – Iris color, just like hair and skin color, depends on a protein called melanin. We have specialized cells in our bodies called melanocytes whose job it is to go around secreting melanin. Over time, if melanocytes only secrete a little melanin, your baby will have blue eyes.
If they secrete a bit more, his eyes will look green or hazel, When melanocytes get really busy, eyes look brown (the most common eye color), and in some cases they may appear very dark indeed. Because it takes about a year for melanocytes to finish their work it can be a dicey business calling eye color before the baby’s first birthday.
The color change does slow down some after the first 6 months of life, but there can be plenty of change left at that point. Eye color is a genetic property, but it’s not quite as cut-and-dried as you might have learned in biology class.
Two blue-eyed parents are very likely to have a blue-eyed child, but it won’t happen every single time. Two brown-eyed parents are likely (but not guaranteed) to have a child with brown eyes. If you notice one of the grandparents has blue eyes, the chances of having a blue-eyed baby go up a bit. If one parent has brown eyes and the other has blue eyes, odds are about even on eye color. If your child has one brown eye and one blue eye, bring it to your doctor’s attention; he probably has a rare genetic condition called Waardenburg syndrome.
When is eye color determined in pregnancy?
What are the milestones in my baby’s sight development during pregnancy? –
Weeks pregnant | What’s happening |
---|---|
6 weeks | Eye “cups” form on either side of the head. |
7 weeks | The cornea, pupil, iris, lens, and retina start developing. |
8 weeks | Tear ducts start to develop. |
10 weeks | Eyelids have formed, and are fused shut. |
27 weeks | Eyelids start to open and close, and your baby can soon blink in response to light. |
32 weeks | Pupils can constrict and expand. Your baby may be able to see dim shapes. |
34 weeks | Your baby can see the colour red. |
37 weeks | From birth, your baby can focus well to about 20cm to 30cm, and can also spot contrast and changes in lighting. |
What causes blue eyed?
Is eye color determined by genetics? A person’s eye color results from pigmentation of a structure called the iris, which surrounds the small black hole in the center of the eye (the pupil) and helps control how much light can enter the eye. The color of the iris ranges on a continuum from very light blue to dark brown.
Most of the time eye color is categorized as blue, green/hazel, or brown. Brown is the most frequent eye color worldwide. Eye color is determined by variations in a person’s genes. Most of the genes associated with eye color are involved in the production, transport, or storage of a pigment called melanin.
Eye color is directly related to the amount of melanin in the front layers of the iris. People with brown eyes have a large amount of melanin in the iris, while people with blue eyes have much less of this pigment. A particular region on plays a major role in eye color.
- Within this region, there are two genes located very close together: and HERC2,
- The protein produced from the OCA2 gene, known as the P protein, is involved in the maturation of melanosomes, which are cellular structures that produce and store melanin.
- The P protein therefore plays a crucial role in the amount and quality of melanin that is present in the iris.
Several common variations (polymorphisms) in the OCA2 gene reduce the amount of functional P protein that is produced. Less P protein means that less melanin is present in the iris, leading to blue eyes instead of brown in people with a polymorphism in this gene.
A region of the nearby HERC2 gene known as intron 86 contains a segment of DNA that controls the activity (expression) of the OCA2 gene, turning it on or off as needed. At least one polymorphism in this area of the HERC2 gene has been shown to reduce the expression of OCA2 and decrease P protein production, leading to less melanin in the iris and lighter-colored eyes.
Several other genes play smaller roles in determining eye color. Some of these genes are also involved in skin and hair coloring. Genes with reported roles in eye color include ASIP, IRF4, SLC24A4, SLC24A5,, TPCN2,, and, The effects of these genes likely combine with those of OCA2 and HERC2 to produce a continuum of eye colors in different people.
- Researchers used to think that eye color was determined by a single gene and followed a simple inheritance pattern in which brown eyes were dominant to blue eyes.
- Under this model, it was believed that parents who both had blue eyes could not have a child with brown eyes.
- However, later studies showed that this model was too simplistic.
Although it is uncommon, parents with blue eyes can have children with brown eyes. The inheritance of eye color is more complex than originally suspected because multiple genes are involved. While a child’s eye color can often be predicted by the eye colors of his or her parents and other relatives, genetic variations sometimes produce unexpected results.
Several disorders that affect eye color have been described. is characterized by severely reduced pigmentation of the iris, which causes very light-colored eyes and significant problems with vision. Another condition called affects the pigmentation of the skin and hair in addition to the eyes. Affected individuals tend to have very light-colored irises, fair skin, and white or light-colored hair.
Both ocular albinism and oculocutaneous albinism result from mutations in genes involved in the production and storage of melanin. Another condition called heterochromia is characterized by different-colored eyes in the same individual. Heterochromia can be caused by genetic changes or by a problem during eye development, or it can be acquired as a result of a disease or injury to the eye. Sturm RA, Duffy DL, Zhao ZZ, Leite FP, Stark MS, Hayward NK, Martin NG, Montgomery GW. A single SNP in an evolutionary conserved region within intron 86 of the HERC2 gene determines human blue-brown eye color. Am J Hum Genet.2008 Feb;82(2):424-31. doi: 10.1016/j.ajhg.2007.11.005.
- Epub 2008 Jan 24. PubMed:,
- Free full-text available from PubMed Central:,
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- Genetics of human iris colour and patterns.
- Pigment Cell Melanoma Res.2009 Oct;22(5):544-62.
- Doi: 10.1111/j.1755-148X.2009.00606.x.
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- Genotype-phenotype associations and human eye color.
J Hum Genet.2011 Jan;56(1):5-7. doi: 10.1038/jhg.2010.126. Epub 2010 Oct 14. Review. PubMed: : Is eye color determined by genetics?
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What foods make your eyes lighter?
Stay up-to-date with the latest from 20/20 Onsite – It’s not an uncommon thing to have wondered before if your eyes are capable of changing color. At some point or another, we’ve all wanted to have different eyes just to see what they’d look like. And as crazy as it may sound, eyes can absolutely change color! How does this happen? Let’s start with the basics. First of all, the iris is a muscle in the eye that gives it its color. With light, the iris can either expand or contract in order to control pupil size. The pupil shrinks when exposed to bright light, whereas it grows in dimmer lighting. When the pupil changes size, the pigments in the iris either compress or spread apart, which causes a slight change in perceived eye color,
- Age Babies are usually born with light blue or gray eyes, yet as they grow, their eyes often get darker. This is because eye color is determined by your genes and the melanin level on your body. As you grow up, the melanin level increases around your pupil, making the eye darker. However, 10-15% of Caucasian eyes change to a lighter color as they age, as pigment in the iris changes or degrades,
- Exposure to the sun Melanin production can be activated through solar exposure, meaning that a prolonged time exposure to the sun could make your eyes darker.
- Emotions Certain emotions can change the size of your pupil and the iris color. When you are happy, angry, or sad, your body releases a hormone that makes your pupil size change, When you’re happy or angry, your eyes usually become more vibrant, while when you cry, your eyes obtain a reddish color, making your eyes appear brighter.
- Clothing and makeup Darker clothes as well as some color makeup on your eyelids, or white eyeliner, are all things that can make your eyes look more vibrant and brighter, This is just a matter of perception, not reality, but your eyes will definitely pop a bit more than usual!
- Your diet They say you are what you eat, and for the eyes this is entirely true! The type of diet you keep will influence your eye color. Here are some of the foods that change your eye color if consumed often : Spinach: It’s richness in iron will make your eyes look younger and shine brighter! Organic honey: Regular consumption of honey could make your eye hue lighter and brighter. Fish: Consuming fish can increase your eye color strength and depending on the consumption, this changes could be permanent. Olive oil: Many people believe that adding olive oil to your diet could change the shade of your eyes. Onions: Regular intake of onion has shown gradual changes in eye and skin color. Nuts: Add different nuts to your diet and your eyes could gradually get a lighter color. * Note : Roasted nuts won’t affect your eyes since their nutrients (what might change your eye color) have already been destroyed by exposing them to high temperatures. Chamomile & Uva Ursi tea: eyes relax and pupil size changes, making the eye appear a different color (usually a warmer shade),
- Your health Your eye color can also change to a yellowish or greenish shade when you are unwell or if you have an eye disease such as : Horner’s Syndrome: A complication with the third cranial nerve. This disease could make the affected eye(s) change to a lighter color. Fuch’s Heterochromic Uveitis: A chronic mild inflammation of the front section of the eye. Pigmentary Glaucoma: In this type of glaucoma, the pigment on the back of the iris is disrupted and the loose pigment granules collect on the back of the cornea. This loose pigment could also collect on the front of the iris, changing the color. Medication for glaucoma c ould also affect the color of the eyes.
There are many reasons why your eyes may at least appear to change color. In certain cases, like eye disease and changes in your diet, your eye color may truly change. However, many times it is only a matter of perspective and elements that can reflect into your eyes, tricking the mind of those looking at you into thinking your eyes just changed into a different shade.
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Can you change eye color naturally
– The short answer: no. The pigment melanin determines your eye color. Eyes with a lot of melanin will be naturally darker. The less melanin in your eyes, the lighter they’ll be. For the most part, your eye color will stay the same from infancy. Research has found that eye color can change in rare cases due to injury or genetics.
Some people have two different colored irises from a condition called heterochromia. This condition is often caused by injury or trauma to the eye. Rarely, it may be caused by a birth defect such as Waardenburg syndrome, Sturge-Weber syndrome, congenital Horner’s syndrome, or Parry-Romberg syndrome. Pigmentary glaucoma may also affect your eye color.
This is a type of inborn open-angle glaucoma that can develop during your 20s or 30s. Some people have claimed that bathing your eye in a mixture of pure honey and lukewarm water will change its color over time. There’s no scientific evidence supporting this.
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Can baby have blue eyes if parents don t?
Making Eye Color Predictions with Basic Genetics – If you want to try and predict your baby’s eye color, pull out your high school biology textbook to help narrow down just how likely it is that your baby will have blue eyes. If you didn’t keep it, don’t worry, I’ll give you a quick review.
- As FamilyEducation’s Genetics Expert, I have developed my knowledge on these topics through a combination of college classes, teaching, and self-study.
- We all inherit two copies of each gene (allele), eye color included.
- One copy comes from our mother, and one from our father.
- Both alleles are stored in our chromosomes (our genetic code) and can be passed on to our children, but only one presents in how we look.
Dominant genes present while recessive genes “hide out” in the DNA code for a chance to pass on to future generations. Generally, darker colors are the dominant traits, while lighter colors are recessive, so a person with one brown-eyed gene and one blue-eyed gene will have brown eyes.
Blue eyes + blue eyes = 100% chance of blue eyes Brown eyes + blue eyes = 50% chance of blue eyes, but only if the brown-eyed parent carries a blue-eyed gene. If not, the chance is 0% Brown eyes + brown eyes = 25%, but only if both parents carry the blue-eyed gene. If not, the chance is 0%
It is important to remember that this theory is a simplified version of what really happens at the genetic level. Human eye coloring is actually controlled by a complex genetic process and there are many different eye colors other than just blue eyes and brown eyes.
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Do First borns look like their father?
Do first-born babies actually look more like their fathers? There’s an old theory that says first-born babies were genetically predispositioned to look more like their father. It was believed this was so the father accepted the child was his and would provide and care for them.
- There’s also another theory that says it was so he didn’t eat the baby These theories obviously date way, way back, long before paternity tests existed (or cannibalism was frowned upon).
- But even today, all new parents can’t help but look at their baby and wonder, who does it look like? It’s often one of the first things people will comment on when they meet a little one for the first time.
But is there actually any truth to the theory at all? A 1995 from the University of California sought to prove the theory by matching photos of 1-year-old children with pictures of their father. The study asked 122 participants to match photos of children at 1-year, 10-years and 20-years with photos of both their mothers and fathers.
In concluding the study, co-author and psychologist at the University of Padova in Italy Paola Bressan noted that to the best of her knowledge, “no study has either replicated or supported” the findings from the 1995 study that stated babies resemble their fathers.But even though the science isn’t there to back up the theory, why do so many of us say it rings true, that firstborns do tend to look more like their father? Get 10% off access to Mothercraft Nurse and baby whisperer – Chris Minogue Use code ‘EXPERT10′ at checkout
Well, it’s probably because most of us are going off personal experience. But then the problem with that is, resemblances are highly subjective. Whereas one person might look at a baby as a “spitting image” of either their mother or father, another person might not see any resemblance at all.
- This means you’ve really got to feel for those babies and mothers back in the caveman days when that’s all they had to go off.
- These days we know that children share 50% of their parent’s DNA, and there are dominant genes and recessive genes – which leaves rather a lot of room for variation.
- Yep, the cavemen definitely didn’t get this memo either.
Add to this the fact that babies grow and change so much in the first year and every year after that. Some will start out with the spitting image of one parent, but as they grow they end up looking much more like the other. It also begs the question, is a father who is excited about having a child more likely to see himself in his baby than one who is nervous/anxious/not wanting it? Or will a striking resemblance shock even the most detached father into bonding with his child? Whilst the jury is still out on proving this theory as a hard fact, based on your family does this ring true for you? Did your first-born look more like you or your partner at birth? And what about as they’ve grown up has it changed? Many fathers during maternity leave don’t know how to distract themselves.
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What genes are inherited from father only
#3 Y-Linked Inheritance (for Sons) – All men inherit a Y chromosome from their father, which means all traits that are only found on the Y chromosome come from dad, not mom. The Supporting Evidence : Y-linked traits follow a clear paternal lineage. A mutation on the Y chromosome can only be passed from father to son, and they’re all considered “dominant” in that there’s no second Y chromosome from mom to alter or mitigate the effects.
Hypertrichosis – Excessive hair growth on the outer ear Syndactyly – “Webbed toes,” where the skin between one or more toes is fused Chromosome infertility – Can affect the male’s sperm production
The Big Picture : For the most part, there’s no real indication that boys take after their dads in looks any more than they look like mom, but Y-linked traits are the exception to this rule.
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What is the rarest eye color?
Green Eyes – Green is considered by some to be the actual rarest eye color in the world, though others would say it’s been dethroned by red, violet, and grey eyes. Green eyes don’t possess a lot of melanin, which creates a Rayleigh scattering effect: Light gets reflected and scattered by the eyes instead of absorbed by pigment. This effect makes the eyes look green, but they don’t actually have green pigmentation.
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How can I predict my baby’s hair color
Can We Predict a Baby’s Hair Color? – Well, we can try to predict it, but our new arrivals tend to surprise us! Although there are trillions of possible combinations, the chances your baby will have a completely different hair color from you or your partner are small.
Look at it this way. If you and your partner have brown hair, there’s a good chance your little one will too. But if one of you has a little darker hair or more eumelanin (the pigment responsible for dark hair, skin, and eye colors), then your baby might have darker locks, The same goes for blond and red colors.
For a long time, researchers thought that red was recessive and blond was dominant. However, now we know that it’s possible to be a redhead. The red hues are simply hidden beneath a light-brown tone. Of course, we also have to consider our family’s history of hair color.
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What genes are inherited from mother only
Why Do We Inherit Mitochondrial DNA Only From Our Mothers? (Published 2016)
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Mitochondria in hepatocyte cells of the liver, shown in yellow. Credit. Bsip/UIG, via Getty Images For a long time, biologists thought our DNA resided only in the control center of our cells, the nucleus. Then, in 1963, a couple at Stockholm University discovered DNA outside the nucleus.
Looking through an electron microscope, Margit and Sylvan Nass noticed DNA fibers in structures called mitochondria, the energy centers of our cells. Our mitochondrial DNA accounts for a small portion of our total DNA. It contains just 37 of the 20,000 to 25,000 protein-coding genes in our body. But it is notably distinct from DNA in the nucleus.
Unlike nuclear DNA, which comes from both parents, mitochondrial DNA comes only from the mother. Nobody fully understands why or how fathers’ mitochondrial DNA gets wiped from cells. An international team of scientists recently studied mitochondria in the sperm of a roundworm called C.
- Elegans to find answers.
- Their results, this week in the journal Science, show that paternal mitochondria in this type of roundworm have an internal self-destruct mechanism that gets activated when a sperm fuses with an egg.
- Delaying this mechanism, the scientists found, led to lower rates of embryo survival.
Down the road, this information could help scientists better understand certain diseases and possibly improve in vitro fertilization techniques. This work “comes closest to elucidating a key development process that has perplexed us for a long time,” said Justin St.
John, a professor at the Hudson Institute of Medical Research in Australia, who was not involved in the research. It’s well known that the transfer of mitochondrial DNA from mother to offspring, often called maternal inheritance, occurs in humans and most multicellular organisms. Maternal inheritance is what allows genetic testing services like to trace our maternal ancestries.
You inherited your mitochondrial DNA from your mother, who inherited hers from her mother and so forth. Maternal inheritance also gave rise to the idea that there exists a “,” a woman from whom all living humans inherited their mitochondrial DNA. Before this research, it had been thought that maternal inheritance was orchestrated by processes in the mother’s egg cells, said Ding Xue, a professor at the University of Colorado Boulder and one of the authors of the paper.
- Large structures called autophagosomes, for instance, are known to engulf paternal mitochondria shortly after a sperm penetrates an egg. Dr.
- Xue and his colleagues found, however, that the paternal mitochondria in the roundworms actually started to break down before any autophagosomes reached them.
- It’s like a suicide mechanism,” said Byung-Ho Kang, a professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and another author of the paper.
The researchers identified a gene, called cps-6, that seemed to initiate the breakdown process within paternal mitochondria. They found that deleting cps-6 caused paternal mitochondria to linger longer in the embryo. It also led to higher rates of embryonic death.
This paper provides the first experimental data suggesting that it’s not good to keep sperm mitochondrial DNA,” said Vincent Galy, a researcher at Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris, who was not involved in the study. It’s unclear whether having some paternal mitochondrial DNA in our cells leads to health problems.
To date, there’s been one reported possible case, in 2002 by researchers in Denmark. In a man with mitochondrial myopathy, a neuromuscular disease, the scientists discovered a mutation on mitochondrial DNA that came from his father. It’s possible, however, that the mutation occurred spontaneously after conception, rather than being inherited directly from his father.
- Further research could shed light on diseases caused by mitochondrial DNA, which can lead to blindness, nerve damage and dementia, Dr. Xue said.
- Because it’s a somewhat lengthy screening process, doctors don’t generally check patients for the inheritance of paternal mitochondria.
- But “as we do more studies, we might actually find that it’s closely related to some human diseases,” Dr.
Xue said. More studies could also expand understanding of an in vitro fertilization technique that involves injecting a single sperm directly into an egg. Some researchers have studied whether this technique leads to the presence of sperm mitochondrial DNA in the embryo, but “there are contradictory results,” Dr.
Galy said. The big mystery that remains is why maternal inheritance occurs so consistently across organisms, Dr. Xue said. One theory has to do with the fact that sperm must generate a lot of energy when competing to fertilize an egg. During this time, sperm mitochondria are overworked, which could possibly damage their DNA and lead to mutations.
But this theory, and all others, are still speculative, Dr. Xue said. “This is a longstanding biological question,” he said. “There must be a fundamental, important reason why most species actually adopt the same style of mitochondrial inheritance.” : Why Do We Inherit Mitochondrial DNA Only From Our Mothers? (Published 2016)
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Can a baby have blue eyes if only one parent does?
How can two brown-eyed parents have blue-eyed children? Editor’s Note (1/6/2021): Some information in this article is out of date. While it describes eye color as a simple trait determined by 2 genes, scientists now know this is incorrect. Eye color is a that is influenced by many genes.
While the truth is more complicated than described below, it is still true that brown eye color is more dominant to blue, and that the DNA for blue eyes can be hidden in a family for generations. A lot of different colors can lurk behind someone’s brown eyes. This is true even if an eye color like blue hasn’t been seen in a family for generations.
The blue eyes could still be hiding there, waiting for the right time to appear. That right time is when both parents happen to have that particular color hiding out behind their brown. If only one parent has the right stuff to pass on blue eyes, odds are none of the kids will end up with blue eyes. Blue eyes can stay hidden in a family tree for hundreds of years The blue eyes would keep getting passed down until finally one of these “carriers of blue eyes” had children with another parent that was a carrier too. Now their children would have a chance at blue eyes.
This is almost certainly how the two of you ended up with a child with blue eyes. You and your husband both have blue and at least one of you has green eyes hiding behind your brown. By chance, you each passed a blue to one of your children and that child ended up with blue eyes. Well, that is almost how it worked Three Eye Colors, Two Genes For something seemingly so simple, eye color is surprisingly complex.
Even the simplest models of eye color that try to explain just brown, green, and blue need two genes. The first gene determines whether or not you will have brown eyes. If it says have brown, then the other gene doesn’t matter. You will have brown eyes.
If it says not to have brown eyes, then the second gene kicks in. This gene will determine whether you will have green or blue eyes. One way to think about it is with cards. Imagine the first gene is a card that is always on top of the second one. This first gene comes in two versions, brown and clear. If you have a brown card, you can’t see the card underneath.
It could be green, it could be bluewho knows? The end result is brown eyes. If you have the clear card, then you can see what is underneath. And it will be either blue or green. Now you have blue or green eyes depending on the underneath card. Here is what I mean: As you can see, if you have the brown card (gene), you will have brown eyes no matter what is underneath. But if you have a clear card (not-brown gene), then the second card (gene) matters. This is a very simplified version of how blue eyes can stay hidden in a family tree.
Generation after generation, at least one parent passes down a brown version of the first gene. The blue stays hidden until two people with a hidden blue happen to both pass a clear and a blue to their child. Now the child has blue eyes. But how can a brown eyed person pass a “clear card?” It is because we have two copies of most of our genes.
So instead of two cards, one for each gene, we need to think about four cards, two for each gene. Two Genes, Four Copies Getting back to our card example, let’s say that instead of one of each type of card, we have two. So for the first gene you could have two browns, a brown and a clear or two clears.
And for the second you could have two green, a green and a blue, or two blues. Again the brown and clear genes are always on top of the green and blue. But one difference is that now we say that green is always on top of blue. So if you have two browns, again you have a brown card on top. And if you have a clear and a brown, then you still can only see brown.
You can only get green or blue with two clear cards. When that happens, we can take a look at the cards underneath. If there are one or two greens, you have a green pile. But if both of the first gene are clear and the second blue, then you have blue. OK, that was a lot of cards! Here are three examples: In the first, the brown trumps everything. In the second green wins out over blue and in the last, blue wins out. So in genetics-speak, brown is dominant over green and blue, and green is dominant over blue. Another way to say this is blue is recessive to green and brown, and green is recessive to brown.
Let’s use these cards now to imagine your situation. First off, you each have brown eyes so you have at least one brown. But you also had kids with green and blue eyes so we know your second card has to be the clear one. You each have one brown and one clear card. Since you had a green and a blue eyed child, we know you must each have a blue and at least one of you has a green.
So one of you for sure has a green and a blue and the other has either two blues or a green and a blue. Now we’ll explain how your three kids ended up with the eye colors they did. Before doing that we need to remember one thing. We pass on only one of each of the two pairs of cards to our kids. As you can see, both the husband and wife in this example have one of each card. In this case. The husband passed a brown and a green card and the wife a clear and a blue. The child has brown eyes but could have blue or green eyed children because of the clear card. Here is one way that each child could end up with different colored eyes: For both the green and the blue eyed child, each parent had to pass a clear card. Then the green or blue depends on whether a green got passed down or not. Bringing It Back to Genes Up until now I have been talking about cards but of course they are just a representation of genes. The first gene, brown or not brown, is in the first pair of letters and the second gene, green or blue, is in the second pair. So Bb Gb has one of each card and since there is a brown, this person has brown eyes. Here is a list of possible gene combinations (genotypes) and possible eye colors (phenotypes):
Genotype | Phenotype |
BB bb | Brown |
BB Gb | Brown |
BB GG | Brown |
Bb bb | Brown |
Bb Gb | Brown |
bb GG | Green |
bb Gb | Green |
bb bb | Blue |
So there you have itprobably way more than you wanted! Recessive traits like blue eyes can lie dormant in the genes for hundreds of years waiting for the chance to awaken and be seen. That chance comes when two carriers come together and have children. : How can two brown-eyed parents have blue-eyed children?
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Why some babies are born with blue eyes
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Many babies appear to have blue eyes when are born, but be aware that their color will probably change. Melanin, which is the brown pigment that provides color to our skin and eyes, has not been fully deposited in our eyes as a newborn baby. As a baby’s eyes are exposed to light, the melanin production is started in the iris.
- The iris is the colored part of the eyes that regulates how much light enters our pupils.
- When the iris contains a lot melanin, eyes appear brown.
- Less melanin gives us green, gray, or light brown eyes.
- If very small amounts of melanin is deposited then we have blue eyes.
- People diagnosed with albinism have no melanin deposited and their eyes have a pink hue.
The production of melanin increases mostly during the first year of life. At 6 months of age a baby’s eye color has usually been determined. However in some cases a babies eye color can continue to change after 6 months of age and continue to change up to 3 years.
Green eyes can continue to change into hazel and hazel can turn into brown, but brown eyes will not turn into blue eyes. In 10% of the population there can be continued eye color change into adulthood. Even though babies are born with blue eyes, the genetics of their parents will ultimately determine thir eye color.
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How likely is it to have a child with blue eyes?
What color eyes will my child have? – There’s no guarantee when it comes to your offspring’s eye color. While a baby inherits half of their eye color genetics from one parent and half from the other parent, the way that the genes interact also plays a role in determining eye color.
- Differences in eye color are also influenced by differing amounts of melanin, the pigment responsible for eye color (plus hair color and skin tone).
- For instance, many white non-Hispanic babies are born with blue eyes because they don’t have the full amount of melanin present in their irises at birth.
As the child grows older, if they’ve developed slightly more melanin in their irises, the eyes will be green or hazel, When the iris stores a lot of melanin, the eyes will be amber (a golden brown), light brown or dark brown. Even though you don’t know the amount of melanin your baby will have, you can still get a pretty good sense of eye color from the parents’ eye colors.
Two blue-eyed parents are likely to have a blue-eyed child, but it’s not guaranteed. Two brown-eyed parents are likely to have a brown-eyed child. Again, it’s not guaranteed. Two green-eyed parents are likely to have a green-eyed child, although there are exceptions. Two hazel-eyed parents are likely to have a hazel-eyed child, although a different eye color could emerge. If one of the grandparents has blue eyes, the odds of having a baby with blue eyes increases slightly. If one parent has brown eyes and the other has blue eyes, the chances of having a brown-eyed or blue-eyed baby are roughly even.
The Fertility Institutes, which offers fertility services in California, New York, Utah and Mexico, offers the following odds of a baby’s eye color based on the parents’ eye colors. (Due to rounding, percentages don’t always add up to 100%.)
Both parents with brown eyes: 75% chance of baby with brown eyes, 18.8% chance of baby with green eyes, 6.3% chance of baby with blue eyes. Both parents with blue eyes: 99% chance of baby with blue eyes, 1% chance of baby with green eyes, 0% chance of baby with brown eyes. Both parents with green eyes: 75% chance of baby with green eyes, 25% of baby with blue eyes, 0% chance of baby with brown eyes. One parent with brown eyes and one parent with blue eyes: 50% chance of baby with brown eyes, 50% chance of baby with blue eyes, 0% chance of baby with green eyes. One parent with brown eyes and one parent with green eyes: 50% chance of baby with brown eyes, 37.5% chance of baby with green eyes, 12.5% chance of baby with blue eyes. One parent with blue eyes and one parent with green eyes: 50% of chance of baby with blue eyes, 50% chance of baby with green eyes, 0% chance of baby with brown eyes.
Keep in mind that it may take six to 12 months for a baby’s true eye color to emerge, so the color you see at birth can certainly change. SEE RELATED: Is it true all babies are born with blue eyes?
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