• Question: Do the famales animals have the same cell in there

    Asked by anon-251684 to Alex on 24 Apr 2020.
    • Photo: Alex Agrotis

      Alex Agrotis answered on 24 Apr 2020:


      Our bodies and the bodies of other large animals are made of trillions of cells.
      Cells come in many different shapes and sizes, designed to do different things. For example nerve cells are long and thin, which helps them to send messages to other cells.

      We have a lot of cell types in common with animals, because we do have similar organs (heart, lungs etc.) made up of cells that work in a similar way. However, cells from different people or animals are never exactly the same on the inside. This is because of the DNA, which is the instructions for telling the cells how to work. Everyone has their own unique set of DNA. We inherit half of our DNA from our mother and half from our father.

      The DNA of males and females within the same species will be very similar. But there is one important difference – the sex chromosome. This is a piece of DNA, which in humans is called the ‘X’ or ‘Y’ chromosome. Women have two X chromosomes, whereas men have one X and one Y. Because of the different instructions, men and women develop differently and do have some different cell types. For example, fertile women have ovaries which produce egg cells (one cell type), and fertile men have testis that produce sperm cells (a very different type of cell). Apart from this and a few other examples, men and women are made up of similar cell types. But everyone has their own unique set of DNA instructions. The same idea is true for other animals.

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