How did my body know that my left and right hand are to be grown as mirror images of each other?

Question

Same with feet, etc. Does each hand have its own gene(s)? Or is it one gene and then a flip switch that controls the other hand’s design?

In: Biology

Answer 1

>Does each hand have its own gene(s)?

Probably.

We don’t actually *know* how genes work on this sort of “medium” scale as it’s incredibly hard to study directly and our computers aren’t powerful enough to simulate it, but since people exist with more fingers on one hand than another that’s a pretty strong sign they have different genes.

Oh and also, if you look closely your hands are likely very slightly different, but that could just as easily be due to random/chaotic motion of amniotic fluid as genetic differences (we know that genes don’t define the fine details of finger prints, for example, from twin studies).