26Drug Addiction Risk
50-60% of drug addiction risk is genetically inherited.
27. Ectopia Cordis is a rare genetic defect that develops in fetuses in utero. Their chest wall doesn't form correctly. It also doesn't fuse as it normally would. This prevents the heart from developing where it should, leaving it defenseless and exposed. 90% of babies don't survive.
28. Alana Saarinen is a girl with 3 biological parents. Alana’s nuclear DNA is from her mother and father, with mitochondrial DNA from another woman. This procedure has now been banned due to safety and ethical concerns.
29. The chances of you being you, taking into account eggs, sperm, ancestry, etc., is equivalent to 2 million people each rolling a trillion-sided die, and each person rolling precisely the same number (approximately 1 in 10^2,685,000).
30. Every fetus is a female in the uterus until receiving the “Y” chromosome. If the sperm has a Y chromosome, your baby will be a boy. If it has an X chromosome, the baby will be a girl. If it is a boy, in the further stages of fetal development, when the testosterone kicks in, the cells begin to change in the genitals, but the nipples remain. That's why men have nipples.
31Color Blindness
Color blindness is carried on the "X" chromosome. Since women have two of them, they won't be colorblind as often as men who only have one.
32. Snatiation is a genetically-transmitted condition in which people sneeze after eating a meal and becoming full.
33. Random testing has shown that far more British people carry the Mad Cow Disease prion than have shown symptoms, which is roughly 1 in 2000. The absence of symptoms is thought to be linked to genetics.
34. X-linked Dystonia-Parkinsonism is an adult-onset genetic movement disorder that affects individuals who descend from the Philippine Island of Panay. It is a neurodegenerative disease that evolves over many years, resulting in significant disability and a shortened life span.
35. In 1990, Dr. Mary-Claire King discovered the human gene BRCA1 which is linked to breast cancer. Soon after, Myriad Genetics cloned and patented it. She was sent a cease-and-desist letter to stop researching it. Finally, in 2013, the US Supreme Court ruled that human genes cannot be patented.
36Danny DeVito’s Height
Danny DeVito’s height is the result of Fairbank’s Disease, a rare genetic disorder that affects bone growth.
37. Lactose tolerance is a genetic mutation where a cytosine (C) nucleotide in a person's DNA is replaced with thymine (T) nucleotide which allows them to digest milk.
38. Darwinian theory has no explanation for why a species with mating rituals do not completely lose all-male genetic variants since females are only attracted to certain specific male characteristics. This is known as the Lek paradox.
39. 8% of our DNA consists of remnants of ancient viruses, and another 40% is made up of repetitive strings of genetic letters that are also thought to have that origin.
40. Genetic Sexual Attraction is sometimes seen between “close blood relatives who have been separated during the critical years of development and bonding and are reunited after as adults.”
