Why do children look like their parents?
Recipe Book You
Why do children look like their parents?
Have you ever heard someone say, "You have your mother's eyes!" or "That's your father's smile!"? It's a little bit funny when you think about it. How does a smile get passed down, like a hand-me-down sweater? The answer is hiding inside you — billions of tiny instruction books, tucked into every cell of your body.
Your whole body is built from cells — teeny-tiny building blocks, far too small to see. And inside almost every one of them sits a secret recipe book. This book has the instructions for making YOU: your eye color, your nose shape, the way your hair curls or refuses to. We call this recipe book your DNA.
