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genetics vocabulary
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| heredity | the passing of traits from parents to offspring |
| trait | a specific characteristic than an organism can pass to its offspring through its genes |
| fertilization | the process in sexual reproduction in which an egg cell and a sperm cell join to form a new cell |
| genetics | the scientific study of heredity |
| purebred | an offspring of many generations that has the same form of a trait |
| gene | a sequence of DNA that determines a trait and is passed from parent to offspring |
| allele | the different forms of a gene |
| recessive allele | an allele that is hidden whenever the dominant allele s present |
| dominant allele | an allele whose trait always shows up in the organism when the allele is present |
| hybrid | an offspring of crosses that has two different alleles for a trait |
| probability | a number that describes how likely it is that a particular event will occur |
| punnett square | a chart that shows all the possible combinations of alleles that can result from a genetic cross |
| phenotype | an organism's physical appearance or visible traits |
| genotype | an organism's genetic makeup, or allele combinations |
| homozygous | having two identical alleles for a particular gene |
| heterozygous | having two different alleles for a particular gene |
| incomplete dominance | a situation in which one allele is not completely dominant over another allele |
| codominance | a situation in which both alleles for a gene are expressed equally |
| multiple alleles | three or more possible alleles of a gene that determine a trait |
| polygenic inheritance | the inheritance of traits that are controlled by two or more genes, such as height in humans |
| meiosis | the process that occurs in the formation of sex cells (sperm and egg) by which the number of chromosomes is reduced by half |