Whats the name for characteristics being passed down the family?

Answer 1

You get 23 chromosomes from each parents. The 2, one from each parent that determines your sex are the two that are made up of y & Mitochondrial DNA. Y goes from father to son only. Mitochondrial goes from mother to both sons and daughters but only the daughters pass it on to their children. They both come down to you in a straight line virtually unchanged.

The other 22 chromosomes are made up of your Autosomal DNA. They pretty much determine your genetic profile. You get Autosomal 50-50 from both parents but when you get back to your grandparents it will not be 25-25-25-25. You get 50% from your paternal grandparents and 50% from your maternal grandparents. However, what you inherited wil not be an even breakdown between grandmother and grandfather on both sides. It will be bias in favor of one over the other.

How you inherited this bias will not necessarily be how your siblings inherited the bias unless you have an identical twin.

Now, we get questions all the time from people who think eye coloring, height etc should come from one specific parent and it doesn't. Of course, we know that darker traits dominate over lighter traits, brown eyes over blue. However, you can't look at a couple where one is relatively tan and the other very fair and think most of their children should have darker traits. The darker one could have recessive genes for the lighter traits and combining them with the lighter parent would mean that 5 out of 5 children could wind up light.

There is not a Genetics board on Yahoo Answers. I found a website that said you don't get your Autosomal DNA 50-50 from both parents so I asked a question about this on the Biology board. Here is the reply

"Actually, you do inherit your autosomal DNA 50-50 from each parent. That site is wrong.

"Your mother's egg contributes one set of 22 autosomes and one sex chromosome (an X). Your father's sperm contributes the other set of 22 autosomes, and another sex chromosome (either an X or a Y).

"Where the 50-50 part breaks down is when you pass on your DNA to your children. Each of your children will get half their DNA from you, but they won't necessarily get an equal mix of what you inherited from your parents. They could inherit a more from your mother, through you, and less from your father, or vice versa.

"Another way to look at it: you inherited 50% of your autosomal DNA from each parent, but you didn't necessarily inherit exactly 25% from each grandparent. Your maternal grandparents contributed exactly 50% in total, but it could be biased in favor of either your maternal grandmother or your maternal grandfather. Same goes for your paternal grandparents.

Answer 2

A physical characteristic passed down from parent to offspring is called a phenotype, and is the expression of the genotype the offspring inherited from its parents.

Answer 3

Gene

Answer 4

inheritance

Answer 5

genitics