AP BIOLOGY

Detailed explanation-1: -Normally, each cell in the human body has 23 pairs of chromosomes (46 total chromosomes). Half come from the mother; the other half come from the father. Two of the chromosomes (the X and the Y chromosome) determine your sex as male or female when you are born.

Detailed explanation-2: -We inherit a set of 23 chromosomes from our mothers and another set of 23 from our fathers. One of those pairs are the chromosomes that determine the biological sex of a child – girls have an XX pair and boys have an XY pair, with very rare exceptions in certain disorders.

Detailed explanation-3: -When the sperm and egg cells unite at conception, each contributes 23 chromosomes so the resulting embryo will have the usual 46. Meiosis also allows genetic variation through a process of gene shuffling while the cells are dividing. Mitosis and meiosis, the two types of cell division.

Detailed explanation-4: -Healthy humans have 46 chromosomes, 23 from the sperm and 23 from the egg. An embryo with the wrong number of chromosomes is usually miscarried, or develops disorders such as Down’s syndrome, which is caused by an extra copy of chromosome 21.

Detailed explanation-5: -The 23rd pair, the sex chromosomes, differ between males and females. Females have two copies of the X chromosome, while males have one X and one Y chromosome. The 22 autosomes are numbered by size. The other two chromosomes, X and Y, are the sex chromosomes.