In Biology class Akane learns about a Punitt's(SP?) Square. For
those who aren't familiar with that, it's a chart that more or less
indicates what color eyes one's child will have. Akane learns that two
brown-eyed parents cannot have a blue-eyed child (unless both parents are
heterozygotes, which is rather rare).
I don't think this is true. My mother is Chinese, and thus is obviously
homozygous for brown eyes. My father is caucasian, and he has brown eyes.
His father is Greek and has brown eyes. His mother is West European and
has green eyes.
My younger brother has green eyes, but there's no way he could be
homozygous for green eyes because my mother is homozygous for brown.
Anyone know?
Actually, the gene-mappings for eye color are much more complicated than
they are usually protrayed as in High School Biology. The only real
instances in which the Punitt's square applies to eye color are with brown
and blue eyes. If you start mixing greens in (or any of the other, rarer
colors) things get *complicated* fast. Essentially, (as I understand it)
Blue is the 'weakest' recessive (i.e. you have to be homozygous to have blue
eyes) and Brown is the strongest dominant. But a Brown-Green mix can be
either brown or green, depending on other factors.
A more in-depth treatise is a matter for biology texts and/or private mail,
if you're *really* interested. As a matter for determining parentage,
however, I agree with another list member in asserting that a blood test is
a *lot* more reliable, even for the simplest of blood typing.
Morpheus the Shaper
http://milamber.home.mindspring.com