Ask a Geneticist

I have learned many things from these links. For example. I learned that there usually isn't a relationship between the number of chromosomes and the number of genes. Chromosomes can be fused together or broken apart. Humans and chimpanzees are very similar because they have the same number of genes; 98.8% alike. Bacteria has all of its DNA in one chromosome, while in humans, it's broken down into many. One reason for this is because humans are more complex, and bacteria is more simple, reproduction wise too. When humans produce sex cells, each sex cell has only 23 chromosomes. There is no telling in which chromosomes an offspring will get because there are over 10 trillion different possibilities. Chromosomes are basically a package containing one's genes. Genes are stretches of DNA that contain instructions for making a protein. Gene duplication are groups of genes that are more organized on our chromosomes.This is another way to create new genes. Overall, I have learned a lot from these interesting articles.