Oops! Wrong kind of muttation! I meant mutations. Anyway, a mutation, is sort of a mix up of DNA sequence. Mutations can be inherited, or you get them throughout your life. Example of an animal mutation:
There are three different types of mutations.
Substitution mutation-
A substitution mutation is when one base is switched with another. It can cause major damage to protein structures resulting in the organism being wrong.
Insertion mutation-
An insertion mutation is when a random extra base is inserted into the DNA.
Deletion mutation-
Deletion mutation is exactly what it sounds like. It is when a base of the DNA is missing or got deleted.
This picture explains the 3 different types of DNA:
Some diseases known today such as autism and cancer are formed because of mutations. Cancer makes cells duplicate too fast.
It's really bad to have a mutation in your DNA because DNA does a lot for us. It determines our eye color, our skin color, and etc. Also, down syndrome is a sort of DNA mutation.
Links:
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/mutations_01
http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/archive/sloozeworm/mutationbg.html
http://www.genetichealth.com/g101_changes_in_dna.shtml
