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Post by moabiter on May 14, 2010 1:22:39 GMT -8
Culture May Be Encoded in DNA By Lizzie Buchen, May 3, 2009 | Categories: Animals, Brains and Behavior, Genetics Zebra finches, which normally learn their complex courtship songs from their fathers, spontaneously developed the same songs all on their own after only a few generations. “We found that in this case, the culture was pretty much encoded in the genome,” said Partha Mitra of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York, co-author of a study in Nature on Sunday. Birds transmit their songs through social interactions, as humans do for languages, dances, cuisine and other cultural elements. Though birds and humans have clearly followed different evolutionary paths, birdsong culture can still inform theories of human culture. Read More www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/05/songbirdculture/#ixzz0ntUSN03w
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Post by clone on Dec 14, 2010 5:33:44 GMT -8
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Post by moabiter on Jan 4, 2011 9:53:28 GMT -8
The July 7 bombings and heritability: carrying trauma to the next generation 10:09AM GMT 23 Nov 2010 The heretical proposition here is that these epigenetic marks can be transmitted along with the DNA. It is the result of intensive research into how these mechanisms work. The best understood is DNA methylation, in which methyl molecules latch on to some areas of the DNA strand and act as switches that render a gene active or inactive. Too much or too little methylation, and a host of problems occur, from fragile X syndrome to a variety of cancers. The latest findings, however, indicate that psychological conditions, such as trauma and stress, also leave an epigenetic mark... In a similar experiment, Professor Eric Richards at Washington University, St Louis, showed that the way rats are nurtured affects the methylation of a crucial receptor in the hippocampus. After a positive nurturing experience, the appropriate gene gets turned on at a vital early stage; after a bad one, the gene remains unused. The same is found in humans. A study of women in Holland who were pregnant during a prolonged famine after the Second World War found that their daughters had twice the normal risk of developing schizophrenia. Again, the causes were epigenetic, the result of changes in the expression of a gene linked with embryonic growth. www.telegraph.co.uk/science/evolution/8153276/The-July-7-bombings-and-heritability-carrying-trauma-to-the-next-generation.html
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