PSY 750 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Infant Mortality, Chromosome, Xyy Syndrome
Document Summary
Principles of heredity: conception - conception occurs when a sperm cell from the father penetrates and unites (fertilizes) with the ovum (egg cell) from the mother. The egg is about 90,000 times as heavy as the sperm. Women have finite number of eggs (300-500), men infinite number of sperm. For example, a teaspoon of sperm could father everyone alive on earth today: chromosomes - in the nucleus of each cell there are threadlike entities called chromosomes and on these there are genes which contain the genetic code. Each cell of normal people contain 46 chromosomes (2 sets of 23). Phenotype is how those genes are interpreted into behavior or characteristics: sex chromosomes - of the 23 pairs of chromosomes, 22 are autosomes, that is they are possesses equally by males and females. The 23rd pair is the sex chromosome and differs in males and females.
