Thanks to this week’s issue of Newsweek, I now know that “epigenetic changes in sperm are carried forward transgenerationally.” Don’t even bother to check your online dictionary. I’ll translate (I’m a full-service blogger): If your great-grandparents or parents or you or your partner participated in a potentially damaging lifestyle (Oh, let’s say like consuming the contents of vacuum cleaner bags on a regular basis) your very genetic code will change and such changes will be passed down for generations. I’ll wait until you take an anti-depressant before I continue.
This goes beyond consumables. For example, one’s mother’s stimulating experiences during her youth, apparently affect one’s memory during adolescence. My mother was forced to drop out of high school to raise her young siblings. Her life was not exactly what you’d call “enriched.” This why I now know that my always poor memory (which I heretofore had attributed to the onset of peri-menopause from age 12), may be due, instead, to her non-enriched life experiences.
Before you go completely off the deep end, the research shows that reverse is true as well. An “enriched” lifestyle (I’m thinking this doesn’t include coffee Haagen Dazs on demand) can positively affect one’s grandchildren, even if one himself doesn’t have an enriched lifestyle. Whoopee for that. My kids certainly had an enriched lifestyle. Maybe that will in part compensate for generations of blue collar (and worse) struggle that preceded their privileged generation.
Astute readers will now be asking, “But wait just a darn minute! Surely an individual’s own life experiences count!!!” My answer is, I certainly hope so. Otherwise, why the hell else did I read “Green Eggs and Ham” every night before bedtime to my daughter from approximately age one to the time she went away to college?
Is there any optimistic conclusion to all this? I have no idea. If you do, let me know. We certainly can’t undo what has been done. The journalist who wrote the piece ends with the following: “Consider it a warning to hold off on your unhealthy behavior until after you have had children.” Let’s hope she just has a really bad sense of humor
Gayane
November 4, 2010
My Mom had no secondary schooling either. She’s a cracker at languages and cooking, some people smoked when they were having trouble sleeping, Mom would bake up a batch of something wonderful. Turns out her father (who died when Mom was very young so she didn’t really know him) was a baker in old Russia. I am good at languages but cooking is not something I do in my sleep. My Dad is an engineer but my math skills are sorely lacking. I think I got the short end of the genetic stick…..
lifeintheboomerlane
November 4, 2010
Methinks you did not get the short end. There are other characteristics you did get, like being a “people person” and your very caring nature.
writerwoman61
November 4, 2010
So, what you’re saying is that it’s all the man’s fault…we already knew that!
Seriously, though…food for thought!
Wendy
lifeintheboomerlane
November 4, 2010
Yeah, but watch out for that food!
Patricia
November 5, 2010
Well, at least when I mess up it’s not MY fault.
lifeintheboomerlane
November 5, 2010
Right. We can go back forever.
duke1959
November 5, 2010
Remember what Thomas Jefferson wrote: Life ,Liberty and its the man’s fault.
lifeintheboomerlane
November 5, 2010
Good one!
duke1959
November 5, 2010
We know how Tom found his happiness!
sunshineinlondon
November 5, 2010
So that’s what’s wrong with me? At least now I know… 🙂
Sunshine xx
lifeintheboomerlane
November 5, 2010
Yes, I think this research provides a public service for everyone.
carldagostino
November 5, 2010
IHAVE READ ABOUT THIS RESEARCH IN VARIOUS FAMILY AND TRIBAL STUDIES. I AM NO SCIENTIST (BA,MA LIB ARTS, 34 YR HS HISTORY TEACHER), BUT I JUST CAN’T BELIEVE THAT GENES CAN CHANGE SO QUICKLY NOT ONLY FOR PHYSIOLOGICAL BUT EVEN TO PSYCHOLOGICAL AND BEHAVIORAL TRAITS.
IS THIS AN EVOLUTION THAT’S TAKES PLACE FROM A FAMILIAL AND TRIBAL CONSCIOUSNESS THAT WHOSE PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE ARE INFLUENCED BY MERE CONSCIOUS OR SUBCONSCIOUS PER GENERATIONAL THINKING? GOOD LORD! NEXT THEY’LL BE TALKING ABOUT HORSELESS CARRIAGES, FLYING MACHINES, AND TALKING WIRES!
lifeintheboomerlane
November 5, 2010
I thought the same thing when I read the article. On the other hand, some of the work in quantum physics (of which I know less than a smattering) is showing that changes can be made quickly in brain chemistry and in cellular structure. Don’t worry about flying machines. It’ll never happen. Here’s one article I found: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lee-schneider/unseen-forces-and-your-he_b_558898.html
duke1959
November 6, 2010
What an interesting article. There is simply so much that is not known.
lifeintheboomerlane
November 6, 2010
Yes, and as genetic research gets more sophisticated, who know what will be discovered?
duke1959
November 6, 2010
I read something years ago that stated that this notion of people being solely of one race or another is a farce. In ways that does make sense.
lifeintheboomerlane
November 6, 2010
Absolutely. We all started at the same place in Africa and spread out throughout the globe over the next 50,000 years. So ultimately, we really are the same person. Or that’s what I believe.
duke1959
November 8, 2010
That is why labels are offensive to me. There is so much we simply do not know.