Epigenetics
Posted: Mon Dec 07, 2015 9:29 am
Lamarkism, much derided over the years with talk of girrafe neck-stetching etc, seems to be making a bit of a comeback in the more subtle and scientifically explained form of epigenetics. For decades the central doma of molecular biology (DNA transcribed to RNA translated to PROTEIN) held that what happened in a lifetime (genetically) stayed in a lifetime, but this appears now to be gradually but irrevocably overturned, by an understanding that acquired changes can and do cross the generational barrier in a hereditary manner.
Early indications that something of this sort might be occurring were seen in studies of children born to nutritionally challenged mothers, known to be smaller at birth, but who then carried forward the trait to their own offspring and even into the next generation even though the nutritional deficit was long since passed. In the lab it was also demonstrated that fruit flies could be induced to give rise to offspring with shrivelled wings, and that this too would then be passed on as a heritable characteristic without further treatment.
The term epigenetics, coined to describe and study this phenomena has been applied more loosley and widely than it should have been, and in areas where it shuld not have been, but it's still a major shift in the understanding of how we come to be what we are and should be closely watched. Lamarkism is vindicated and I for one am pleased for him!
Early indications that something of this sort might be occurring were seen in studies of children born to nutritionally challenged mothers, known to be smaller at birth, but who then carried forward the trait to their own offspring and even into the next generation even though the nutritional deficit was long since passed. In the lab it was also demonstrated that fruit flies could be induced to give rise to offspring with shrivelled wings, and that this too would then be passed on as a heritable characteristic without further treatment.
The term epigenetics, coined to describe and study this phenomena has been applied more loosley and widely than it should have been, and in areas where it shuld not have been, but it's still a major shift in the understanding of how we come to be what we are and should be closely watched. Lamarkism is vindicated and I for one am pleased for him!
