How Can Understanding Dominant and Recessive Traits Help Us in Real Life?

Understanding dominant and recessive traits is helpful in many real-life situations. Here are a few examples:

Genetic Counseling: This helps families see the chance of passing down certain health conditions.
- For instance, if one parent has a gene for cystic fibrosis (we can say they have "CC") and the other parent is healthy but has one gene for it (they have "Cc"), there’s a 25% chance their child could have cystic fibrosis.
Agriculture: Farmers and plant breeders use what they know about traits to pick the best plants to grow.
- About 30% of the crops we eat today have been improved by careful selection of traits through breeding.
Medicine: Knowing which traits run in families can help doctors create better treatment plans.
- It’s thought that 10-15% of all cancers come from inherited traits linked to dominant and recessive genes.

Understanding dominant and recessive traits is helpful in many real-life situations. Here are a few examples:

Genetic Counseling: This helps families see the chance of passing down certain health conditions.
- For instance, if one parent has a gene for cystic fibrosis (we can say they have "CC") and the other parent is healthy but has one gene for it (they have "Cc"), there’s a 25% chance their child could have cystic fibrosis.
Agriculture: Farmers and plant breeders use what they know about traits to pick the best plants to grow.
- About 30% of the crops we eat today have been improved by careful selection of traits through breeding.
Medicine: Knowing which traits run in families can help doctors create better treatment plans.
- It’s thought that 10-15% of all cancers come from inherited traits linked to dominant and recessive genes.

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