Big, muscular people look as if they can
resist anything. But they can have allergies or asthma, or be injured by chemicals, too. And the bigger they come, the more skin the sun can burn! Most of us, for example, can get sunburned on a bright day. Your reaction will be greater if you are outside, without much on, for a long time. Your reaction will be less if you cover your exposed skin with lots of sun screen. How badly you burn can depend on your age and previous exposure. (Babies and toddlers need a lot more protection.) Finally, if one or both of your parents burn very easily, they may have passed that sensitivity to you in your genes.
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Genes are the instructions -- the marching orders -- that direct our growth, what we look like, and how we react to things in our world, or environment.
Each human - whether infant, child, teen or adult - has 70,000 pairs of these orders, or genes. They tell our bodies' cells what to be and how to behave. Do you remember transformer toys? You twisted them one way and they were space ships. You twisted them another way and they became robot warriors. Well, under the genes' orders, the cells become the ultimate in transformer robots. The genes instruct our original dab of cells, as they divide, to become different - muscle, bone, lung, or brain cells, or part of a toe. As a result of what the cells become and do, we grow. And we stand and run and catch footballs and dance - more or less with grace and skill. We breathe. We think! |
The complete package of genes for an animal - what makes a dog a dog - is called its genome. These packages or genomes are why people give birth to babies, dogs to puppies, and cats to kittens. Many of the genes in other animals are similar to those in humans. After all, people and animals, like our dogs, all have to do certain things, like digesting food, so we need a similar gene for that. When we are loyal, frisky and bright-eyed - and tip over garbage cans - maybe it's those shared genes? |
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