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Hollywood often portrays forensic science in a fascinating light. Many people have likely aspired to work in a lab and analyze delicate evidence after watching an episode or two of CSI.
But it can be a different story once you’ve done the actual work. You will likely have noteworthy answers to Reddit questions like this: “What was the most shocking thing discovered in your lab?”
As usual, those who’ve had firsthand experience, or know someone who has, delivered some of the most shocking responses. Prepare to read stories about babies testing positive for illegal substances, toys lodged inside internal organs, and oddly shaped kidneys.
Enjoy scrolling, but perhaps having a meal while doing so isn’t a good idea.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
That he WAS the father.
I’m a bookkeeper/billing guy at a clinic and we tested a baby to see if he was the father.
Mom and dad were both blonde hair, wife had blue eyes, both looked super white.
Kid was REALLY black. Was tested earlier and he didn’t have a condition, he was just black.
The dad wanted a paternity test cause when you have two white parents and a black kid, raises some questions.
Turns out the mom had a black grandfather that didn’t show up in their skin and that she didn’t know about.
Kid was biologically theirs, but just looked totally different.
Marla 1 year ago
I mean the mom must have even been suspicious. I would immediately think a Dr did something to me
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October 1 year ago (edited)
Our blonde, blue eyed adopted daughter was contacted by a man claiming to be her bio dad. Not only was he a totally different guy than the one on her birthcertificate, he was also black. So naturally we asked for a dna-test. Lo and behold, he really is her bio dad.
Emie N. 1 year ago
I'm surprised she had blue eyes. Brown is the dominant gene. I have two friends who are biracial and both have blonde hair and BROWN eyes. I guess genetics really can go in crazy directions.
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smugdruggler 1 year ago
I knew a couple years ago that had two daughters. He was Indian and she was white. They had one blonde white girl and one black haired brown girl. And they were twins!
Karen Krause 1 year ago
It happened near where I live. A white supremacist couple had a black child. Guy claimed the mother had cheated. They both took DNA tests. Apparently, BOTH had hidden secrets in their families. I always wonder how the kid turned out.
Debra Robinson 1 year ago
Hopefully they're ok...away from the shitweed fukcwits.
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ConstantlyJon 1 year ago
Poor mom, must have been so difficult for her. What a test of a relationship for both of them.
Cuppa tea? 1 year ago
My mom's uncle was head of haematology. This was back in 80's DNA teste weren't really a common thing (socialist CSSR). Anyway - they were doing paternity test and the baby's blood didn't match mother's. Panic ensued - somehow babies were switched. Under some disguise they called all babies born within the certain days to hospital, so they could to further tests. All matched except the same baby and mother. They reached out to main university hospital and laboratory in capital. They done DNA and confirmed that baby is of the mother. In rare cases the blood type from mother is not passed down to baby, so it will not match. He had a saying - is certain it's the mother who's dubious.
LakotaWolf (she/her) 1 year ago
Oh goodness! Did the two sets of parents get their genetic offspring back?
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Little Wonder 1 year ago
I used to work with a white woman who had a black brother - same thing, their grandfather was black.
trollingergirl 1 year ago
Best to print this on some T-shirts, when going on a family outing...
Jay Cee 1 year ago
My late father had a workmate who was Black from an all white family. Turned out an ancestor had married freed a slave woman in the West Indies back in the late 1700s before returning to England. Six generations later the gene resurfaced quite strongly. With the bizarre mindset of the day (UK 1930s) the family decided to call the baby Moses like he'd been found in a basket!
Stephanie de Blaauw 1 year ago
Movie: Skin (2008). Two white people in South-Africa birth a daughter with dark skin, dueing apartheid. Based on a real story
RELATED:
#2
So, not forensics (entirely), and not me. I had a professor in college that was pursuing her doctorate while working at the Mayo Clinic.
Year after year, a man came in to be tested for a disorder/disease that [ended] his father at that very hospital. Year after year, he tested negative. But every year, he got tested in an effort to stay ahead of it. Because, genetics.
One year, he tested negative as usual, but the staff had an idea. They cracked open the archives, dug his father's file out & put it next to his. DNA wasn't even close.
Poor guy has no idea his late father was never his biological father at all. And the hospital has no right or obligation to inform him.
XenoMurph 1 year ago
No obligation, but come on, tell the poor dude. Or refuse his money for the test at least. "We can't in all honesty take your money because there is no risk factor here. No, we can't tell you why."
Fellfromthemoon 1 year ago
We tested your DNA and can say with 100% that you did not inherit that allele.
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WonderWoman 1 year ago
Hospital had no right to dig into archives and compare without permission
XanthippeⓐWulf🇨🇦️️🇬🇧 1 year ago
I was going to say this. This is why there is currently so much controversy on the storage of DNA results. No one should be randomly running comparisons on your genetic information unless it is requested. Slippery slopes & all that.
Load More Replies... WonderWoman 1 year ago
also BP killed and died are common words - ended makes it sound nefarious.
Fluffy Griffin 1 year ago
Suggest to him some tests he could run, including a DNA test to be sure that you weren't swapped at both haha (but really you should check)
ZestyBison 1 year ago
You don't think maybe that's something you could mention. Little loop around maybe, considering the circumstances.
Anna Bella Vittoria 1 year ago
Good news - you will NEVER get this disease. Bad news - we can't tell you why, but your mom can 🤪
#3
In doing my MSc in forensic pathology and anthropology, there is a final practical exam component. The examiner hauled in a large cardboard box. The type/size you would store documents in.
When dumped on the table, it looked like a broken plant pot. No piece was bigger than 1.5 inches diameter. He then goes "could you find all the pieces of *example of bone* and reconstruct it please?
Turns out it was a ~16 year old girl whose boyfriend had caved her head in with a stone and cut her into tiny bits before burying her in a field.
Only reason she was found was because her decomposing flesh caused the plants right hear her body to be oddly large and lush for a dry forgotten field.
Earthquake903 1 year ago (edited)
Scumbag boyfriend. Eta: Sorry if this comment isn't venomous enough for some of you. Judging by the comments below, there are many dissatisfied comment readers. But I've gone figuratively nuclear in my comments on bad people before, like Dennis Rader, and I got mocked for it. So, it appears some comment readers just can't be satisfied.
Dragons Exist 1 year ago
reminds me of a comment on BP a few years ago where someone said "murder is not ok :("
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Serial pacifist 1 year ago
Boyfriend should be sentenced to an eternity in prison without ever seeing the sun or a single flower ever again.
Karina 1 year ago
I feel she deserves better than to be eternaly cursed out by angry students, stressed out about finding the last piece of her broken bones...
Aballi 1 year ago
Maybe...or maybe it's an honor to be able to help future pathologists learn how to solve crimes like hers. It depends on the person. I'd be fine with my body being used for science!
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Courtney Christelle 1 year ago
Glad she was finally found. Hopefully the boyfriend rotted in prison.
Mattie 1 year ago
"because her decomposing flesh caused the plants right hear her body to be oddly large and lush for a dry forgotten field" I don't understand completely, can someone please explain to me how she was found?
Julia Mckinney 1 year ago
Unfortunately, her remains were good fertilizer for the plants. Look up the green burial movement that explains how human composting works.
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SkippityBoppityBoo 1 year ago
Anyone know if she was eventually given a respectful decent burial after?
Susann Phillips 1 year ago
You guys are more generous than I would be. If capital punishment was back in play for crimes lik3 this, there may not be crimes like this. If the US were to incorporate harsher punishments for federal crimes, I believe the prisons would have a less people incarcerated. No 3 strikes, punishment for 1st offenders. Oh, and like the military, hot water is earned along with other privages. This bullsh$t prisoners have Internet, cable TV - are you kidding me??
nuberiffic 1 year ago
Capital punishment is demonstrably not a deterrent for crimes like this.
Load More Replies... #4
I attended an autopsy where the subject being examined had one large kidney that extended to both sides of his body instead of having 2, one on each side of his body.
Robin Childers 1 year ago
My mom was born with 3 kidneys, 2 bladders and 0 tonsils. I think she absorbed a twin, but have 0 proof.
Horosho Bodka 1 year ago
My wife has Klepper-Flail syndrome, and that is one of the effect/signifiers.
Cybele Spanjaard 1 year ago
Maybe he had never been ex-rayed, not that it would be noted for a future autopsy..or would it?
#5
I only just started here so what’s shocking to me is probably super minor but i had a decedent that died and was found with multiple bottles of isopropyl alcohol around her with straws in them. She literally was sipping isopropyl alcohol through straws. It obviously [ended] her, but i cannot get past the thought of that. How serious of an addiction do you have that doing something like that makes sense? Just the thought of doing that makes my stomach turn.
linda collins 1 year ago
Nurse here. It is quite common for patients with a drink problem to drink the alcohol spray or gel while they are in hospital.
TribbleThinking 1 year ago (edited)
You're right. I've seen a hospital where they've removed the hand sanitizers from the unmanned lobby for that reason.
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Steve Hall 1 year ago
I think there are still quite a few people who do not understand that isopropyl is poison.
Nicola Roberts 1 year ago
A life time ago I worked in hotel, at a holiday/seaside resort. Most of the staff were younger than 23 and partied hard. But the person who I will never forget was a Chef who needed a fix at 5am and drank a bottle of aftershave when nothing else was available.
Tom De Paul 8 months ago (edited)
Why didn't he have access to cooking wine, sherry, or even vanilla?
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Rene Thompson 1 year ago
I used to work in a chemical dependency unit attached to a hospital. I saw people drink mouthwash and suck on alcohol swabs so, unfortunately, this does not surprise me.
Whitefox 1 year ago
I worked in a vet hospital that had a man who lived on site with his wife who was the weekend/ night watch type person. We had to lock the rubbing alcohol up with the class 3 narcotics because he would drink it. Even the stuff in the holder for the a**l thermometers wasn't safe! bleh..
Jorie 1 year ago
My father-in-law did the same thing years and years ago. They couldn't leave the thermometers soaking in alcohol on his bedside table.
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Mary Kelly 1 year ago
yes, that's what alcoholics sometimes do...that is why they add bittering agenct to isopropyl alcohols sold in d**g stores.
#6
My friend's wife works in one. Getting blood samples from babies that tested positive for [illegal substances] was apparently fairly common, but the most recent shocking discovery was that the building's plumbing was done in such a way that chemical disposal could back flow into the water fountain drain, and management didn't really care.
Whitefox 1 year ago
Oh, I worked in a fairly new peds hospital. I was there for 5 years before it was discovered that the air from the negative pressure rooms wasnt vented to the filters on the roof, but just released into the floor space under the PICU/NICU Units. All the people with airborne viruses are put into those rooms!
KillerKiwi 1 year ago
Is it really shocking to some people that sometimes babies are born addicted?
Jorie 1 year ago
My former husband worked in a hospital where removed body parts and incoming food used the same doorway. There were often bodily fluids dripping from the bottom of the containers with the body parts. I actually contacted a local news station. I guess they thought I was crazy because nothing was ever done about it.
Sabrina Bowen 1 year ago
Babies testing positive isn't as nefarious as it sounds. Many laboring mothers are given IV pain killers or epidurals with Opioid meds in them. All of this can make it's way to baby depending on how high doses are and how long labor is.
Declan Fleming 1 year ago
They are talking about hard d***s, not painkillers
Load More Replies... #7
I was working in the lab late one night, well one thing led to another and we
DID THE MASH WE DID THE MONSTER MASH.
#8
Years ago when I was working as a DNA analyst, our lab received a limp caesar salad from a local restaurant, take out box and all. Apparently, the guy who ordered the salad said that it was served with blood in it. The restaurant owner said not possible and that the customer must have bled in it so that he wouldn't have to pay. The customer then decided to promptly bring his salad to our lab along with his DNA sample to prove that it wasn't his. Turns out that it was and he unknowingly bled into his salad somehow.
Oh, there was also that one time a dad sent in a bunch of his daughter's soiled feminine hygiene products in to the lab to test for semen.
Most shocking thing though was the time a bunch of DNA samples came. To make a long story short: one large vehicle, lots of [illegal substances], two strung out horny couples, one condom being passed back and forth (yes...flipped inside out), and two pregnant couples uncertain about the paternity of each baby.
Beak Hookage 1 year ago (edited)
Fathers obsessing over their daughter's sexual activities are some of the biggest sick creeps on earth. I mean really.
Sky Render 1 year ago
This is what happens when society encourages men to think of all those with a vagina as "property" instead of "fellow humans"...
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Cassie 1 year ago
What was the point of the condom at all? I guess they were too intoxicated to think it through?
Hey! 1 year ago
Yep, because if someone had an STI, they all have it now.
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Saphyre Fyre 1 year ago
I hope that first person went back with a SERIOUS apology for the restaurant owner/any staff included.
Shark Lady 1 year ago
After reading this I'm so glad that I only worked criminal forensic cases where the worst thing I had to swab for DNA was a severed a toe!
Tom De Paul 8 months ago
Yes, because chimpanzees don't work in laboratories.
Load More Replies... Kim Bailey 1 year ago
Ugh gags the thought of flipping a condom inside out after use is just....bleh someone pass the barf bag please!
ZestyBison 1 year ago
I wouldn't accept the father sending in his daughter's used menstrual pads with the intent of checking for semen.
#9
Not a scientist, but my last job involved scientific testing equipment and sending results to the legal team of the company. Using an XRF gun I found that almost 50 percent of this large companies inventory contains above the legally allowed amount of lead, and various other harmful chemicals. (At a company whose product most people will touch on a daily basis). The legal team sure had their work cut out for them.
Kira Okah 1 year ago (edited)
This was posted four years ago and it sounds older than that with talking about legal mess, what company it is is probably irrelevant now, with legal stuff happening it was most likely cleared up a long while ago.
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Bewitched One 1 year ago
I’m off to Reddit to see if they expanded on this
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Skywitness 1 year ago
I'm glad I dealt with an XFR gun once in my 35+ years of lab work so that actually made sense.
Ray Perkins 1 year ago
XRF. X-ray fluorescence. Worked for a company in 1970 that made them, interesting machine.
Load More Replies... Kira Okah 1 year ago
These are taken from a four year old reddit thread, the incident is pretty likely to be older than that and likely irrelevant now if legal stuff was involved.
Load More Replies... #10
I was working as a scanning electron microscope technician for the R&D branch of a private company when the head scientist gave me a unknown sample to cut up and investigate. There were a bunch of layers of paint on it and he wanted to know what elements were present. Most of the layers showed up as normal elements (O, Al, Cr, etc) but one layer had a peak at Pr (Praseodymium) which is so rare that I forgot that it was even an element. I thought I was going crazy but my engineer double-checked it and it was definitely there. Turns out that Praseodymium is used in certain military grade paints.
CF 1 year ago
From wiki: "Praseodymium is a chemical element; it has symbol Pr and the atomic number 59. It is the third member of the lanthanide series and is considered one of the rare-earth metals. It is a soft, silvery, malleable and ductile metal, valued for its magnetic, electrical, chemical, and optical properties. It is too reactive to be found in native form, and pure praseodymium metal slowly develops a green oxide coating when exposed to air."..Some uses include "yellow-orange "Praseodymium Yellow" stain for ceramics, which is a solid solution in the zircon lattice. This stain has no hint of green in it; by contrast, at sufficiently high loadings, praseodymium glass is distinctly green rather than pure yellow." Can also be used to make powerful magnets and certain types of welder's goggles.
Brian Droste 1 year ago
Thanks for the information. I know very little about chemistry.
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#11
Not super shocking compared to others but the first time you see a computer covered in blood full of bullet holes it is moment you do not forget.
Celtic Pirate Queen 1 year ago
I always love your replies. You are deliciously sick & twisted.
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Bouche and Audi and Shyla, Oh My! 1 year ago
Back when personal computers were only just starting to be a thing, a man was arrested for disturbing the peace. It seemed his computer was misbehaving, and the man shot it. When being processed at the police station, he kept saying that he didn't understand why he couldn't shoot his own computer in his own house.
Erica Knapp 1 year ago
The computer is full of bullet holes and the bullet holes are filled with blood.
Load More Replies... #12
Horseshoe kidney. There were several autopsies going at once and when it was discovered every doctor dropped what they were doing and cake over to look. So I’d suspect the odds are higher than 1:500.
ConstantlyJon 1 year ago
We have a bell in the middle of our clinic that a doctor rings if they have something everyone needs to see. We treat a lot of rare diseases so it gets rung quite often. When I first got here, I thought it was patients ringing for good service. Ha!
Your Neighborhood Alien 1 year ago
That's pretty cool! Do you have a favorite time you were called over and/or most interesting disease that presented itself?
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#13
Candle in an old mans bladder.
Karina 1 year ago
There are many "informational" but graphic videoes out to explain without words 😁
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Saphyre Fyre 1 year ago (edited)
(about Shark Lady's comment) In Rude Health: The Funniest and Most Explicit Stories from the NHS...From the man with a device lodged far inside his body whose batteries refuse to run out, to a woman with a plunger super-glued to her vagina, In Rude Health recounts real life tales from the coal face of the NHS. From doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, psychiatrists and dentists come a range of eye-popping, side-splitting acts of misadventure that have had the medical profession weeping into their face masks as they attended to members of the great British public in their hour of need. In Rude Health is a riotous account of the weird, the warped and the whacky ways we end up in the hands of the medical profession.
Jess Smith 1 year ago
I don't want to read the jacket of that book...but I'm also morbidly curious. (Oh god, imagine if you swallowed an alarm clock!)
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#14
This is my grandfathers story. While he was working in Forensics he had to take a body found at a bottom of a lake. After checking it out he apparently found that there was a hot wheels car lodged in the left lung. He assumed that they must have swallowed it while they were underwater.
Bewitched One 1 year ago
Also, things swallowed don’t normally end up in the lungs. Inhaled things, on the other hand…
Mary Kelly 1 year ago
there are people who had pine trees, peas and other things growing in their lungs b/c they breathed in a seed or something went wrong while swallowing...yet, i still cannot imagaine how a hot wheels car would get inside the lung of a live person.
Karina 1 year ago
Was he an elected forensic "scientist"? Some counties in america will elect sherifs and coroners alike. No education needed, the local school will borrow out their textbook.
Cybele Spanjaard 1 year ago
Curious and curiouser, he inhaled the Hot Wheels...that sounds like a curious murder plot!!
#15
My ex worked in a genetics lab.
It wasn't unusual to receive a severed new-born baby's hand to sample for genetic testing in the case of miscarriage or early-life deaths.
MellonCollie 1 year ago
Damn, can't they just take a tissue sample and leave limbs attached???
Shark Lady 1 year ago
I'm guessing here, could be due to size of sample needed. If there are a lot of tests that need to be run they need enough material, especially if the tests require every type of body cells - bone, blood, etc.
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Panda Kicki 1 year ago (edited)
I did not need to know that. Now I wonder if it happened to my baby.I got a sealed coffin back.
Sue User 1 year ago
I miscarried early. They were suppose to send out for analysis because it was my third. They lost everything, including my records when we requested them to find out what happened.
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Binky Melnik 1 year ago (edited)
I’m imagining having to cut off a baby’s hand will be traumatic for nearly anyone doing it. I’d hate to hafta do that job. I would think a finger would be less horrifying and sufficient for genetic testing. 😰
Patsy Robins 1 year ago
Not even that these days, a small tissue simple is sufficient.
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#16
My friends ma used to work in forensics and we got told a bunch of stories, the most memorable being of when they found the dead body of a girl hacked into bits inside a bin bag.
They at first thought some sicko had [ended] her and cut her up, yknow like sickos do. But after further investigation they discovered something in her lady parts along with a giant hole. Some sciencing later and the something was an acrylic nail.
Turns out she and her girlfriend were doing it when her gf's nail snapped and ripped her open from the inside and she bled out. The girlfriend, in a moment of panic, chopped her up and tried to dispose of the body.
Edit: For all of you saying this is fake, I don't know if it is or not. Like I said I got told this by my friends ma, and she wasn't homophobic or anything. It does seem a little implausible but human beings are wack creatures so who knows.
Tempest 1 year ago (edited)
Well their first thought was still correct. The girlfriend decided to chop up the lady and discard her rather than call authorities and give her a proper burial. Someone who can do that is a definite sicko! While it’s pretty impossible for an acrylic nail inflicted wound to end a life like this (just like OP mentions that they don’t know the veracity of the story), it was still an accident according to the story, so why try to cover it up and get in worse legal trouble?
hwatinternation 1 year ago
A lot of people do end up freaking tf out like that and make things worse for themselves.
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meeeeeeeeeeee 1 year ago
Didn't bother calling an ambulance or going to hospital as she bled to death? Neither one of them considered that, just ''oh, no, I've been cut, goodbye'', maybe potter around a bit, have a little cup of tea waiting for the end.
Mary Kelly 1 year ago
do i think this is an urban legend? yes...but, there have been cases where people have cut up and disposed of bodies who had nothing to do with the death of the person whose body they disposed...invariably it is fear of the police...see the story of francesco travia https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/poisoners-handbook-Chemistry-and-Forensic-Science-in-America/ ...on the other hand, you have people like robt. durst...
Hey! 1 year ago
I can attest to long nails breaking anything inside. My husband still doesn't understand why I bleed so much even though I no longer have my periods. His nails are longer than mine.
Tropical Tarot 1 year ago
That's why you trim the first 2 nails of your dominant hand.
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Jakub Luberda 1 year ago
Lesbians/bi-s with women cut and file the fingernails of three fingers even when other's are long, just for this reason - to avoid accidental scraping and puncturing.
#17
I was working in a lab for a while. Nothing too exciting until we found that one of our coworkers got fired for having d***s, a gun, and other such things in their office. I know it isn't quite what the thread wanted but that was by far the most shocking discovery.
Shark Lady 1 year ago
The lab I worked at couldn't test us for d***s, it was written in our contracts, because the lab also tested all types of illegal substances so it's possible it could have got into us. Biggest bunch of stoners I ever met worked there!
#18
The [crime] weapon in my trainees bottom left desk drawer.
Bewitched One 1 year ago (edited)
“The [crime] (of “unaliving”) weapon in my trainees bottom desk drawer.” Original post comment also says “previous comments say they drive truck though and are not a detective”
Shelli Aderman 1 year ago
I will say that I’ve learned a LOT about my iPhone’s keypad thanks to the BP censors! 🤣🤣
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Hey! 1 year ago
So the weapon was in your sneakers; were you responsible for the unalived person?
Leekier 1 year ago
Trainee not trainer (but I initially read trainer myself )
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What do you think ?
Nicky 1 year ago
Please vet posts for scientific accuracy so people will understand that homozygous recessive genes and traits cannot produce heterozygous dominant genes and traits. Two people with dark skin, hair, and eyes can have a kid with homozygous recessive genes and traits (light skin, eyes, and hair) but not the other way around. This was a scientifically inaccurate posting that spreads misinformation.
Nicky 1 year ago
Please vet posts for scientific accuracy so people will understand that homozygous recessive genes and traits cannot produce heterozygous dominant genes and traits. Two people with dark skin, hair, and eyes can have a kid with homozygous recessive genes and traits (light skin, eyes, and hair) but not the other way around. This was a scientifically inaccurate posting that spreads misinformation.
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