Happy... belated newyear...?

[eramundo]

Ages since I've posted, I know...

but this is interesting stuff!

Epigenetics? Anyone?linking this article more so I can come back to read it again later. I can see this coming down somewhere between damned practical stuff to research, and yet another ethical hornits nest. Ah well, this is why I'm in engineering and not science

Comments

[flidgetjerome]

It's interesting but not as interesting as they think? I mean, isn't that the same in effect as a long-term population vitamin deficiency?

(Page three! "Epigenetics isn't evolution because it doesn't make permanant changes to your DNA"! Three paragraphs down, "Lamarck was right!" Ummmmmm.)

[eramundo]

i guess i'm just interested in the idea of relatively temporary changes to my DNA :-D although as guys manage to mix up their sperm count every N days, I guess they'd be the primary vehicle through which the changes are spread.

which, when you think about it, doesn't bode well for our educational divide amongst the sexes :-D we need more mentally stimulated young men fathering children! or something. we could literally be breeding for binge drinking just by luck of what people are doing when they knock eachother up. how surreal is that. :-D

[eramundo]

it also doesn't help that I'm currently rereading L.Niven's book "Ringworld" right now, where a human discovers that their society has been accidentally been breeding for a dominant 'lucky' gene for the past 10 generations and the culmination of the project is his girlfriend.

sadly her luck doesn't wear off of the people around her.

[tammylee]

Fascinating!

[rehana]

More technical detail, if you want it: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/07/epigenetics.php