It was AP Bio and a solo project I undertook for my own giggles, it was not a class-wide assigned project
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The easiest way i explain hets to people completely unfamilar with them is the blue eye gene in humans. It works very well.
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This thread is super helpful, especially for new keepers.
A bit of constructive criticism: You may want to also go into co-doms and incomplete dominant a bit. That for me was super confusing starting out. 
May be a whole new topic in itself, but just an idea for future conversation. 
It is funny I actually learned about this in AP biology today lol.
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@verinium i have ice blue eyes lol.
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I’m het for blue eyes I have produced a visual lol
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“Co-Dom” is not a method of inheritance.
Done.
LOL
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Co dom is slang for incomplete dominant. So essentially they are they same thing. But “co dom” is not proper terminology as Travis points out.
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i have ice blue eyes lol.
I have blue eyes… both my parents have brown. My twin also has blue. As well as my aunts twins and my aunt and uncle both are brown eyes also.
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Both my mom and dad are hets 
they have both produced only visuals when paired with visuals, but het to het has only produced 66% hets (they divorced and remaried, all of my half siblings have blue eyes)
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It truely is the easiest way and most relateable way to explain hets for this reason. Many can just look at their own family tree and have that eureka moment xD
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That would be great!
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For incomplete dom, eyes still work, many who are “het” for blue eyes will have hazel or light brown eyes, where double brown tends to be dark brown. Its not exactly solid science wise, but it passes the idea of how incomplete dom changes things, while not displaying the full potential of the gene.
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Oh, I have hazel eyes so I guess that makes sense. My mom has brown eyes and my dad has blue eyes.
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Yeah, i dont know if its always the case with hazel, but it is something i have noticed. I personally think blue eyes in humans is actually an incomplete dom, rather than a recessiveike we are taught because of this. Hmmmm… @t_h_wyman have you considered this at all? Im curious to see what youd think.
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That would mean you could visually pick out the brown eyes that produce blue eyes I have a hard time believing that is possible.
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I was under the impression that it simply meant that it caused a visible change. There are many inc doms in ball pythons that are hard to pick out every time because of the variation between normals, but because some present very clearly its considered inc dom. (Low expression granite as an example could easily be mistaken for a normal without much experience in the gene)
Mind you my experience is limited, therefor my understanding could be completely wrong.
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I’m not a geneticist but the difference between recessive and incomplete dominant is that you can visually identify incomplete dominant in single gene form. That would mean you could visually identify which brown eyes will produce blue eyes.
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Fair, but that certainly doesnt hold true in the BP community, there are alot of Inc doms that in low expression are indistinguishable from normals. I would say it would be far easier to spot a brown eyed person with no blue gene with accuracy than trying to figure out which brighter browns are a hidden blue gene and which are just lighter browns.
The principle of hazel vs brown is still easy to explain what a codom is though when used as a example rather than scientific fact.
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That’s a recessive gene by definition
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But they are listed as Inc doms because their high expression I.E. best case examples have enough markers to tell apart. But they are the same gene so even though the low expression is indistinguishable, the gene itself isnt. While I dont think you could spot every single person with the blue eye gene hidden, I do believe that it influences eye color and in some cases, you would definitely be able to tell the difference between homozygous brown or het blue eye.
The issue is so much of it is semantics and opinion, its hard to set a scientific standard to it as phenotyping has historically been one of the least scientific ways of identifying things because of how variable phenotypes can be.
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