DNA as the Carrier of Genetic Information About Us

Without genetics no one would be able to know the possible diseases they could get from their family. Genetics, inherited from our ancestors, prove that the past can shape our present. They can show what is inherited from parents, grandparents, and so forth. Genetics are important because they show our ethnicity, health backgrounds, and traits. People also would not be able to know where they came from, or what their ethnicity is.

Genetics has to do with DNA. DNA is the carrier of genetic information. When people want to know about their heritage some people will pay a lot of money just to figure that out. There are a lot of kits advertised such as “23andMe,” “ancestryDNA,” MyHeritageDNA,” “FamilyTreeDNA,” and a few more. When people advertise a heritage kit, the instructions are usually to spit in a tube until you fill it to a certain amount. Since spit holds DNA these kits use the spit from people to trace back to their ancestry. The reason people do this is because they are able to know more about where they came from, they can maybe see why they are good at certain things, and they get to see what diseases they are more likely to inherit. Sometimes people even find out that they are related to someone who was/is popular. People also find out they are related to some people that we learned about in history, such as: a president, one of the kings/queens, or people that discovered parts of the United States.

If someone were to have something wrong with them their first thought, after thinking over the counter medicine will help; would be to go to the doctor. Usually when people go to the doctor the nurses at the front desk will give you a clipboard and pen with some papers and questions to fill out. The paperwork has questions about the history of injuries or diseases people may have had. They also may ask if anyone in their family has had the same diseases or disabilities that the person may have or had. The reason the nurses have people fill out those papers is because it helps them know if there is a chance it could be hereditary or not. Whether anyone likes the doctor or not, it is better to just go and get it checked out to be on the safe side. If anyone in someone's family has a disease or disability and there is someone showing the same symptoms as their family member was when they had it, it could be a sign. For example, if someone went to the doctor to get their check-up, and someone in their family has or had a kidney disease, or a tumor, their doctor is going to want to check them out or even send them to another doctor who specializes in that category to check them out because their doctor is going to want to make sure they do not get it too because it could be hereditary.

A lot of people usually wonder where they got certain traits from. Such as: hair color, eye color, face structure, finger length, blood type, etc. Well this information comes from our genes. . For every trait we have there are alleles which lead to phenotypes. Phenotypes are either going to be dominant or recessive. When people decide to have a baby the babies traits usually get inherited by their parents. Sometimes though, the baby can end up not looking like its parents at all. Let us say two parents have traits of brown hair, blue eyes, but the father has type O- blood and the mother has type A+ blood. Once their child grows up it ends up having blonde hair, hazel eyes, and type A+ blood. Just because the child did not inherit its hair and eye traits from its parents does not mean anything bad. What it means is the child most likely inherited those traits from someone else in the family they are blood related to. For example, if one of the child’s grandparents had blonde hair, and their uncle has hazel eyes, most likely that is where the child got their traits from. If other people in their family had those traits as well, then the child could have gotten their traits from any one of them as long as they are blood relatives. This is actually very common. Sometimes there is one kid out of the bunch that looks nothing like their parents but looks exactly like their aunt, uncle, or other family member.

Genetics are also used by other people to get information that is needed. When someone gets arrested the police use their DNA and trace it back to their family members. This can go back as far as a third cousin, even though a third cousin only shares a small amount of the same DNA it can still help trace the identity of a killer if they have not found who the killer is yet. Going back to talking about DNA kits, the privacy of a person’s DNA may not be as private as people think. Relatives no one has even met before can take DNA tests that affect others, and the actions taken by those people they are related to can affect relatives no one even knows about. As DNA tests get more popular, databases get bigger. Just because people think they have privacy does not mean they always do. Anyone with these databases could easily find anyone they wanted to just by coming across any relative someone may have.

Getting to know your ethnicity, learning your health background, and traits are able to be known by using genetics. Without genetics those three things would not be possible. Looking back through everyone’s genetics can show people their ancestors, and can even help people understand what inherited diseases they are open to possibly have. It is good to know the health background of parents, siblings, and relatives so people can get tested and keep an eye out to help reduce the chance of them getting the disease. Without geneticists nobody would be able to see them for appointments to get an idea of their medical history, they also would not be able to know the possibility of an inherited cancer risk, and they would not be able to see the benefits and limitations of the genetic testing for people and their family.