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Genes that carry different genetic information about the same characteristic (e.g. eye colour) are
0 called alleles (pronounced al-leels). Some alleles are dominant, which means that they will
8 stop other alleles (called recessive alleles) from having any effect. A dominant allele is written
X with a capital letter and a recessive allele has a small version of that capital letter.
1 The Marvel family have a secret some of them are superheroes with enormous strength.
The super-strength is caused by a dominant allele.

ss

Remarkable Cryptic
Richard Caroline

Careful Bright Maude Serious Sane Brawny Quiet

Cliff Bertha Sylvia Dwane Brian Corrine

Terry
?

Key
Pete Docile Pensive
Normal male Dale Penny

Normal female

Male with super-strength

Female with super-strength

a Using S to represent the dominant allele and s to represent the normal allele, show what
alleles Remarkable Richard has. Explain your reasoning.
b Suggest a full name for Maude. Explain your choice.
c What alleles does Brawny Brian have? Explain your reasoning.
d What chance is there that Terry also has super-strength? Give your answer as a percentage.
e What chance is there that Pete also has super-strength? Give your answer as a percentage.
f Most people are not superheroes. Describe the factors that allow some non-superhero people
to be stronger than others.

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Exploring Science edition 10 Pearson Education Limited 2009

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2 Captain Sensible and his wife Queeeeen Kingdom are both superheros and want to have
superhero children. However, they both come from families where there is a genetic disease that 0
stops people from feeling pain. This is caused by a mutant recessive allele. Use P to represent 8
the normal dominant allele and p to represent the recessive no-pain allele when answering the X
following questions.
a Copy and complete this Punnett square to show the possible allele combinations of the
children.

Captain Sensible
gametes P p
P

Queeeeen
Kingdom p

b What percentage of the children would have the no-pain disease?

c A carrier is someone who does not have a genetic disease but whose cells contain one allele
for the disease. What percentage of the children would be carriers?

@:8E%%% sEXPLAINHOWDOMINANTANDRECESSIVEALLELESCAUSETHEIREFFECTS
including genetic diseases. Page 2 of 2

Exploring Science edition 11 Pearson Education Limited 2009