What is the difference between diploid and haploid genomes?
Sandra Linkletter (slink) wrote a nice description of this topic on the newsgroup, which she has kindly allowed me to use: “Diploid genetics (like in people and other mammals) involves two genes for everything, one from mom AND one from dad. For any one characteristic (speaking *very* simplistically) there can be several gene types, and if any two unlike types are paired together then one will have the dominate influence over the other. That is what is meant by dominant and recessive genes. A gene with a negative effect that is dominant hinders the creature carrying it and lowers the likelihood that the creature will breed or even perhaps live. Also, you can see the effect and weed out the carrier. If the gene is recessive it doesn’t show up unless the offspring gets it from both mom and dad, which is more likely to happen if mom and dad are closely related. Part of the reason it is *so* bad for people to inbreed is because we have not been doing it regularly and we have built up a lot
