this post was submitted on 22 Nov 2025
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This calculation is off by an order of magnitude.
The human genome has about 3.1 billion base pairs. Each sperm has half of that. Ignoring epigenetics, each base pair has four options (A/T/C/G), so it can be represented by two bits each.
All told, that's 3.1 gigabits = 388 megabytes per gamete.
am i dumb or shouldn't it be 2 times 3.1 billion bits, so 6.2 gigabits according to what you said
The full genome is 3.1 billion base pairs (6.2 Gbit = 775 MByte). Each parent (i.e., one egg or one sperm) contributes half of that, 1.55 billion base pairs (3.1 Gbit = 388 MByte).