Name: ______Date: ______

Special Victims Earthquake Baby Mix UP

It’s a full moon at Los Angeles General Hospital and everyone knows that more babies are born on a full moon than any other time of the month. In fact, there were 10 babies just born around the same time in this busy hospital and they were on way to the nursery when an earthquake struck and everyone had to evacuate the building! Every possible patient out of the facility to safety and the job was very chaotic but everyone got out just fine. Unfortunately, in all the commotion the babies never got their little ID bracelets put on and they got all mixed up! No on could tell which baby belonged to which couple. DNA testing could tell for sure but that could take weeks! Isn’t there a faster way?

All of these unidentifiable babies are now special victims now and the Law and Order SVU team of LA needs to use their genetics skills to reunite the babies with their parents.

Known facts:

- Blood types are controlled by multiple alleles

- The possible (common) blood types are A, B, AB, and O

- A and B are co-dominant

- A and B are both dominant to O

- Rh (the Rhesus factor) is controlled like a simple Mendelian trait with positive Rh being dominant to negative Rh

- There were 5 girls born and five boys

- Each couple knows if they had a boy or a girl

- The table below shows the blood type of the parents and if the had a boy or girl

Family name / Mom’s blood type / Dad’s blood type / Gender of child
Gonzalez / B+ / A+ / Male
Taylor / O- / O- / Male
Jones / A- / A- / Male
Mitchell / A- / A- / Male
Wilson / B- / B+ / Male
Henderson / AB- / AB- / Female
Pickering / O- / AB+ / Female
Lee / O- / O- / Female
Smith / A- / AB- / Female
Thomas / A+ / B+ / Female

The baby’s blood types and genders are shown in the next table

Baby by letter / Blood type / Gender
A / AB+ / Male
B / A- / Male
C / A+ / Male
D / O- / Male
E / B- / Male
F / O+ / Female
G / O- / Female
H / AB- / Female
I / B+ / Female
J / A- / Female

Analysis Questions

  1. Were you able to tell which baby belonged to which couple?
  1. If so, how?
  1. If not, why not?
  1. What pairings did you come up with?

Family Name / Baby by Letter / Family Name / Baby by Letter
Gonzalez / Henderson
Taylor / Pickering
Jones / Lee
Mitchell / Smith
Wilson / Thomas