Dominance (genetics)

Okay kiddo, so you know how we have genes, right? They're kind of like tiny instructions that tell our bodies what to do and what traits we'll have, like eye color or hair texture.

Now, sometimes we have different versions of those genes. For example, one person might have a gene for blue eyes, and another person might have a gene for brown eyes. These different versions are called alleles.

When we have two alleles for the same gene, we call it a genotype. And sometimes, one allele is stronger than the other. We call this dominance.

Let's go back to our eye color example. The gene for brown eyes is dominant over the gene for blue eyes. So, if someone has one allele for brown eyes and one allele for blue eyes, they will have brown eyes because the brown allele is dominant.

But wait, there's more! Sometimes, both alleles can be equally strong. We call this co-dominance. An example of this is if someone has one allele for red hair and one allele for blonde hair. They might have a mix of both colors in their hair because both alleles are expressing themselves equally.

So, dominance and co-dominance are just ways to understand how our genes work and why we have certain traits. Pretty cool, huh?