A woman with the ability to roll her tongue (Tt) marries a man who cannot roll his tongue(tt). what is the probability of each of their children being a ton...

A woman with the ability to roll her tongue (Tt) marries a man who cannot roll his tongue(tt). what is the probability of each of their children being a tongue roller?

Answer Details

The ability to roll the tongue is a dominant genetic trait, while the inability to roll the tongue is a recessive trait. In this case, the woman is heterozygous for the tongue rolling gene (Tt), meaning she has one dominant and one recessive allele, while the man is homozygous recessive (tt). When these two individuals have children, each child receives one allele from each parent. Therefore, there are four possible combinations of alleles for each child: TT, Tt, tT, and tt. However, the tT combination is equivalent to Tt, so the only three possible combinations are TT, Tt, and tt. If a child inherits a dominant T allele from the mother, they will be a tongue roller, regardless of whether they inherit a dominant or recessive allele from the father. Therefore, there is a 50% chance that each child will inherit a T allele from the mother and be a tongue roller. The other 50% chance is that the child will inherit a recessive t allele from both parents and not be able to roll their tongue. Therefore, the probability of each of their children being a tongue roller is 50%, and the answer is 50%.