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Challenge Team Interim Report

Team Number: 013 School Name: Silver High School Area of Science: Genetics Project Title: Are YOU one of a kind??

PROBLEM DEFINITION "Are You One of a Kind?" is a project based on genetics and evolution. This project is hoped to model the chromosomes in two humans, and the probability of them producing identical offspring at two seperate births.

SOLUTION Before team 013 attempts to model the human chromosomes, they are first attempting to model a fruit fly. The reason for this is that a fruit fly consists of only 4 chromosomes, while a human carries twenty-three. Therefore, a mathematical model will be created that can apply to any number of chromosomes. This will allow the modeling of the probability of producing identical offsprings at seperate births of MANY living organisms.

PROGRESS AND BACKGROUND A fruit fly carries 4 chromosomes in each of its cells. After cell devision, its sex cells only carry 2 chromosomes. Therefore, when a male sex cell and a female sex cell join, there is a possibility of 4 different combinations. With this information, it is figured that the chances of the same chromosomes being picked twice would be: (2^2)(2^2)= (2^4)= 16. The same applies to humans, as it would be: (2^23)(2^23)= 2^48 approximately 70,368,744,177,700.

The formula that was found to find the number of combinations was:

C(U,V)= (U!)/(V!(U-V))!

Therefore, continuing the formulas, simply plug in K(also number of offspring), and N(number of chromosomes). P represents the chances of 2 identical offsring. ex: P=N*C(K,2)(N-1)(N-2)/N^k
This allows the number of posibilities, gene pool, to be narrowed down as more offspring come into the equation.

A C++ program is being created to randomly pick the male and female chromosomes of a fruit fly, and output the probability of the same combination occuring twice.

EXPECTED RESULTS It is expected that team 013 will successfully write a program that will pick random chromosomes from both male and female, and eventually find 2 that match.

Team Members

Team Mail

• Loren Woods
• Amy Trujillo

Sponsoring Teachers

• Peggy Larisch

Project Advisor(s)

• Mrs. Trujillo
• Mr. Miller