How does human genes work (see details)?

my husband and i both have dark brown hair, i have brown eyes and he has green. My five month old son has dark reddish hair and green eyes, how is this possible if brown hair and eyes are dominant? (not that there is anything wrong with red hair or green eyes i love both, just curious to how the genetics work)

How does human genes work (see details)?

Basically, depending on what genes are in your family, you have about a 50% chance of having a child with brown eyes, brown hair, 25% brown hair, green eyes, and 25% chance of other.

How does human genes work (see details)?

It doesn't always matter what you and your husband have. When the two of you were born, you were given the genes of all your ancestors, which means, while not necessarily dominant, your child(ren) can inherit whatever is lying dormant inside you.

How does human genes work (see details)?

I believe that there can actually be a number of genes that determine the expression of hair colour (some that allow suppression of the dominant hair colours) BUT that said, if you use the basics of genetics, you can assume you and your husband have one dominant B allele (exhibits BROWN hair) and one recessive brown allele (expresses red (no pigment) hair). So, if you and your husband both carry the recessive gene for red hair (red hair is recessive, so both of you would be Bb (B = dominant brown hair, b = recessive red)) then you would have a 25% (one out of four children) chance of having a child with the 'genotype' of bb. You would have a 50% chance (2 children out of 4) with the genotype Bb (so they are carriers of the recessive allele BUT it's not expressed because the dominant B expresses over the little b). You would also have a 1 out of 4 chance of having a child with BB genotype, which means that that child will not be a carrier for the red hair gene.

Hope that helps a little.

here is a web site that sort of describes things

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punnett_squ...

Cheers!

Added: the determination of eye colour is completely independent from the hair colour (different genes regulate that characteristic). Again, a number of genes could in fact affect the expression of genes, thus getting a range of eye colours within families but using the same BASIC concept, eye colour could be determined.