Re: What are the odds to having one attached and one detached earlobe?

hi there
lots of questions, and I am not an expert in ear-lobe genetics.

Apparently, there is a dominant allelle which covers ear-lobe detachment. 
So if you have one or two copies of the dominant allelle, both your ears 
should be detached. You need two recessive attachement allelles to have 
attached earlobes.

Having said that, there are all sorts of "interesting" effects in 
genetics, which can interfere with a particular system, in this case ear 
lobe attachment. I am afraid I don't know enough to say what other 
genetic effects operate on ear-lobe attachement, and this would be a very 
important thing to know.

Unless you have concrete information, I don't think it is possible to say 
whether your distinct ear-lobe attachements arise from a genetic mutation 
(presumably somatic), a birth "defect", or something else. I think it is 
also very important to realise that the words "mutation", or "defect", 
have very powerful adverse connotations in normal english usage, but have 
no moral overtones within scientific discussion. Birth defect is also a 
very imprecise form of words.

For what it is worth, somatic mutation is common, and indeed ubiquitous. 
For example, i have a friend who has green eyes, but about a third of one 
eye is a startling blue. So this is simply a somatic mutation during 
development of the eye, which led to part of one eye losing the dominant 
green allelle. We all have such altered colonies of cells; however, in 
this case, it is visible in my friend's eye. It is also nothing to worry 
about !

hope this helps
david