How do genes mix in humans?

Technically, it’s completely possible because DNA is just DNA. It doesn’t matter where it’s come from. In the lab, you can put jellyfish genes into mice, you can put human genes into bacteria, you can put worm genes into yeast. It’s all DNA. It’s all the same kind of nuts and bolts. If you put a gene in that’s kind of got the right bits and bobs, it will be expressed. That means it will be active and it will make a protein because that’s what genes do. They make little recipes that cells use to make different proteins. Now, that’s what genes do. The difficulty comes when you say, if you put certain genes into different species, would it give that species some new power? So for example say, if you put an olfactory receptor, something involved in smelling from a dog into a human, would a human be able to suddenly smell all these different things? The answer is probably no because one gene doesn’t just give a big characteristic like that. So, one gene is not responsible for super accurate sight or the smelling ability of dogs, or the hearing ability of foxes or something like that.

In the X and Y chromosomes. 50% of your mom's genes are in the X chromosome, and 50% of your dad's in the Y.