Biology/babies physical appearance
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Question
I have used donor eggs for my IVF cycle. I am pregnant with twins now. Please speculate on my twins possible hair and eye color.
Donor hair: strawberry blond
Donor eyes: hazel
her mothers hair: brown
her mothers eyes: green
her fathers hair: reddish brown
her fathers eyes: blue
my babies father: brown eyes and black hair (some American Indian there) I seem to remember his moustach having a bit of red in it before he started shaving it.
His parents are both brown eyes and brown hair.
thank you
Thanks for using AllExperts, Cindy. The eye-color question arises so often that interactive websites have developed to show you the probabilities of the different eye colors that could appear in your children:
http://museum.thetech.org/ugenetics/eyeCalc/eyecalculator.html
Hair color is much less clear, mostly because the genetics that control hair color are more complex than those for eye color. Multiple genes affect not only the specific color (brown, black, blonde, red) but the shade that results. I can tell you this much: red hair is apparently a recessive trait, so it is unlikely that your children will have pure red hair. Since there is a heavy influence of brown and black hair, your children will probably have a dark shade of whatever hair color they do wind up with. Beyond that, unfortunately, I am not able to say much more; such are the realities of modern genetics. I wish you the best.
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| Comment | UPDATE: The girl has dark brown hair and dark brown eyes. The boy has beautiful blue eyes and light brown/reddish hair. However they come out, they are beautiful babies. | ||
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John Locke
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I will answer all biology-related questions through the undergraduate level. I will explain unclear concepts and suggest approaches to solving problems, but would prefer not to completely solve homework problems for you. If you are completely stumped on homework, tell me what you already know and I will help you as much as possible. Please do not ask me for ideas on school research projects; part of research is determining a suitable area of investigation, and that's not a task that should be completed by someone else. Please don't simply send me your homework for solutions. If you are having difficulty after you have started an analysis, I will be happy to direct your thinking; in particular, I would prefer to not simply solve pedigrees for students, but I will be happy to assist in solving pedigrees that you have already started. If you don't understand how to analyze a pedigree, I'd highly recommend watching this video, in which a biology professor explains the basic concepts of pedigree analysis: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbIHjsn5cHo
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I have a BS in Bioengineering with a concentration in Chemical Engineering (which included a heavy focus on biology), and have taught biology, biochemistry, and related subjects for some time now.
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BS Bioengineering, Penn State University
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