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DNA & Genetics: Why Do I Look Like My Parents? · Kids Learning Lab - Science, History, and Technology for Kids and Family

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  Welcome to Kids Learning Lab, a learning podcast made just for
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  kids. In this episode of Kids Learning
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  Lab, I'm here in a secret laboratory.
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  Today I'm going to use my special computer to shrink down.
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  We're going to go inside your body and look at the different
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  parts of a cell. Specifically, we'll shrink and
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  look at DNA and the nucleus. If you don't know what those
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  are, we'll learn in a second. I'm going to get inside this
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  giant pill here. I'm going to shrink down and you
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  are going to swallow me. Let's shrink down.
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  I'm now the size of an Ant. Everything looks way bigger to
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  me. This is really cool, but to see
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  individual cells, we need to go really small.
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  Now my giant pill is a regular pill size.
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  Now all you have to do is swallow me.
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  OK, I'm now in your esophagus, traveling down to your stomach.
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  But we're not here to look at your digestive system and how
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  you eat. We're here to look at a cell,
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  but first, we're still way too big.
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  Let's shrink down one more time. I'm now the size of 1
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  micrometer. It's one thousandth of a
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  millimeter. I'm about 170th the width of a
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  human hair, and hair is really thin.
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  I'm so possibly thin, I'm microscopic.
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  I'm already in your stomach, so let's push into the side to get
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  a good look at one of these cells.
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  I'm now inside 1 cell, a tiny building block of life.
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  Your body has 37 trillion cells. Each cell is around 20
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  micrometers long. 20 of me right now.
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  If you multiplied 37 trillion * 20, you would get 2 1/2 billion.
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  That's enough feet to go from the earth to the moon and back.
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  We have a lot of cells. I could see so many different
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  things moving around. These things are called
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  organelles. They're moving around in this
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  water like Jelly called the cytoplasm.
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  Think of a cell like a tiny city.
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  Everything has a job and everything is moving.
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  Particles float around in the cytoplasm for storage.
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  Do you see those Oval shaped organelles over there?
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  Those are the mitochondria. They are the powerhouses in the
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  cell because they make energy to keep the whole cell running.
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  The flat organelles over there are called Golgi bodies.
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  They package and ship different proteins around the cell like a
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  post office. But right now, we're not here to
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  investigate different organelles.
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  We're going to the nucleus, the big dark sphere in the center of
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  the cell. It's the most important
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  structure in this whole cell. It's kind of like a storage
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  room. Let's push into it.
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  The nucleus stores cookbooks for instructions on how to make U.
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  These cookbooks are called DNA strands.
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  DNA stands for deoxyribonucleic acid.
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  What you need to know is that, like a cookbook, DNA has
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  different recipes and chapters. These are called genes.
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  Each gene has a specific instruction for a different
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  protein. Different workers read these
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  cookbooks for information to create proteins.
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  Each cookbook is called a chromosome.
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  Humans have 46 chromosome cookbooks in total. 23 of them
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  come from your mom and 23 come from your dad.
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  That's why you look like your parents.
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  You have the exact same cookbooks as them.
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  The recipe for eye color might be the same as your mom's, so
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  that's why people say you have her eyes.
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  DNA is made-up of two strains twisting around each other like
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  a ladder. You could see the episode art
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  for today to look at its shape. It's called a double Helix.
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  The instructions are written in a language using 4 distinct
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  chemicals, adenine, thymine, cytosine and guanine.
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  They're written as ATC and G. In total your body.
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  There are 3 billion letters writing out instructions on how
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  to make your unique human body. If you took out all the DNA from
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  just this one cell it would be 6 feet long.
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  And if you took the DNA from all your cells and lined it up end
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  to end, it would be enough to wrap around earth over 1.7
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  million times. You could go to Pluto and back 5
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  1/2 times. It's insane how much DNA there
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  is. Now let's learn about dominant
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  and recessive genes. Not all recipes are made equal.
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  You usually have two recipes for making something, one from your
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  dad and one from your mom. If there are two recipes for eye
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  color, you only use one recipe. The other is secretly carried
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  but doesn't show. The one that shows is dominant.
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  Hidden one is called recessive. So if you have two recipes, one
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  for brown and the other for blue eye color, the brown eye color
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  would win. But you still carry the blue eye
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  recipe. So if you do have kids, the blue
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  eye color recipe could still be given to your kids.
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  You need 2 blue eye recipes and no brown eye recipes for the
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  blue eye to show. The scientist who figured this
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  out was called Gregor Mendel. He was a monk that lived in the
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  1800s and experimented in a garden of pea plants.
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  There's just one more thing before we go back.
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  The DNAI see right now exists nowhere else on earth.
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  It is 100% unique to you and only you.
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  No one on earth has the same DNA except for an identical twin.
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  You can get a twin when you're in your mother's womb and the
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  tiny cell with you splits, creating 2 cells.
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  You share the same DNA, just a different body.
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  This is why DNA is so commonly used to track people.
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  People can use it to figure out who did something.
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  Your DNA is saved everywhere you go.
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  One hair, one drop of your sweat, or one tiny skin cell has
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  all of your cookbooks. All the police need to do is
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  find who on earth has the same cookbooks.
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  Now it's time to get out of your body.
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  Let me just get a little bigger to pill size.
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  OK? Now I'll just fly out of your
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  mouth and back to my laboratory. And I'm back now.
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  Before I leave, it's time for a short quiz.
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  Question one, What's the name of the shape of DNA?
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  The correct answer is a double Helix.
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  Question 2. How many chromosomes do humans
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  have? The answer is 4623 from your mom
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  and 23 from your dad. Question three, What are the
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  four letters that make up jeans? The answer is ATC and G.
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  Question four who experimented with P plans to understand
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  traits. The answer is Gregor Mendel
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  question 5. If a trait is recessive, will it
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  always show or will it be hidden?
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  The answer is it'll be hidden if there's a dominant trait.
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  And finally, it's time for some fun.
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  Facts Fact One. Humans share 99.9% of their DNA
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  with other humans. Almost everything is the same,
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  except for tiny differences that make you unique.
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  Fact Two, we share 60% of our DNA with a banana.
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  Yeah, you heard that. A banana.
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  Fact Three We share 98.7% of our DNA with chimpanzees, the
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  closest animal relatives today. FACT 4 Scientists finished
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  mapping the entire human DNA in 2003.
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  It took 13 years to finish and was called the Human Genome
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  Project. Fact 5 Your body copies DNA
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  every single time a cell splits, which happens millions of times
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  a day. If it makes a mistake, it's
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  called a mutation. And that's the end of today's
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  episode about DNA and genetics. Next time someone says you have
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  your dad's eyes, you know where that comes from.
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  Thanks for listening to this episode.
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  If you enjoyed this episode, do not forget to share it with a
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  friend or family member. Visit us at kidslearninglab.com
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  and sign up for thefreenewsletter@news.kidslearninglab.com.
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  See you in the next episode. Yeah.