Re: What so fascinating about Mendelian Genetics?

I was always facinated by the sickle-cell anemia (disease) situation. 
Meaning if you have both recessive alleles you will have the disease 
but will be immune to malaria. But you may not live long because of 
the disease. If you are a heterozygote you are relatively immune to 
malaria and have mild symptoms of sickle-cell anemia. If you do not 
have sickle-cell anemia (i.e. healthy) you are extremely suseptable to 
getting malaria.

You tend to have a high ammount of heterozygous geneotypes in 
areas that have high levels of malaria carrying mosquitos.

-Mike
-References:
Any basic genetics text book.
Some basic freshman college text books. http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000527.htm http://www.emory.edu/PEDS/SICKLE/