This is very cool. Once you find out about chromosome pairs (high school biology in USA's public schools) a lot of things about Mendelian inheritance fall into place. But if you've got any curiosity, you start to wonder about the 23-pair vs 24-pair thing.
One question this article doesn't answer is "How does this work in a breeding population?"
Most chromosomal abnormalities cause spontaneous abortions, and the ones that don't (Down's Syndrome, etc) would seem to cause some pretty non-adaptive problems.
So how would a merger of 2 pairs of chromosomes start to breed true in a population?
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[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 5.4 ms ] threadOne question this article doesn't answer is "How does this work in a breeding population?"
Most chromosomal abnormalities cause spontaneous abortions, and the ones that don't (Down's Syndrome, etc) would seem to cause some pretty non-adaptive problems.
So how would a merger of 2 pairs of chromosomes start to breed true in a population?