ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Epistates

Epistasis is like when you bake a cake and you need different ingredients like eggs, flour, sugar, and milk. If you don't use enough of one ingredient or if you use too much of another ingredient, the cake might not turn out right.

In our bodies, we also have different ingredients called genes. Genes give us our traits like our eye color or our height. Sometimes, one gene can affect the way another gene works. It's like when one ingredient affects another ingredient in the cake.

This is called epistasis. It's when one gene affects the way another gene works. It's like a boss telling another worker what to do. This can affect the traits we have and how we look.