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From: davison@menudo.uh.edu (Dan Davison)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: Coelocanth and evolution: Human chr. differences
Message-ID: <1991Jun13.015158.14852@menudo.uh.edu>
Date: 13 Jun 91 01:51:58 GMT
References: <676362297.46@egsgate.FidoNet.Org> <1991Jun12.033532.3222@menudo.uh.edu>
	<1991Jun12.132215.20792@fccc.edu>
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In-Reply-To: stodola@orion.fccc.edu's message of Wed, 12 Jun 1991 13: 22:15 GMT
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In article <1991Jun12.132215.20792@fccc.edu> stodola@orion.fccc.edu
(Robert K. Stodola) writes:

[comments about humans having very different chromosomes from each
other, followed by a request for defintion of 'different'

   Don't know much about primate genetics (or any other, for that matter), but
   I gather all mammals have approximately the same amount of DNA, and many
   pieces are common.  In many species, however, they are mixed up on
   a different numbers of chromosomes.  This would seem to interfere
   with the normal mating process...

Oh. No, it doesn't interfere with the "normal mating process", it
interfers with mitosis during cell divison.

What the poster originally said:
   >   But, of course, genomes of every human is quite different from
   >   every other human.

By your definition above humans would not be able to mate, which,
while beneficial for the rest of the biosphere, would be a major
bummer for most humans.

Nonetheless, by no means are the genomes of every human quite
different. There is a semi-mythical story about pathologists being
asked to look at a panel of chromosomes from gorilla and human, with
the obvious ringers removed.  All shown the chromosomes could not tell
the human from the gorilla.

dan







--
dr. dan davison/dept. of biochemical and biophysical sciences/univ. of
Houston/4800 Calhoun/Houston,TX 77204-5934/davison@uh.edu/DAVISON@UHOU
Disclaimer: As always, I speak only for myself, and, usually, only to
myself.