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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
Offspring may inherit legacy of their father's Toxoplasma infection
Studying mice infected with the common parasite Toxoplasma, the team discovered that sperm of infected fathers carried an altered 'epigenetic' signature which impacted the brains of resulting offspring. Molecules in the sperm called 'small RNA' appeared to influence the offspring's brain development and behaviour.
'Intergenerational inheritance' of similar epigenetic changes from men exposed to extreme trauma has been well documented. This latest research, published in Cell Reports, has raised the question of whether Toxoplasma infections – or even possibly other infections – in men before conception could impact the health of subsequent generations.
The research was led by Walter and Eliza Hall Institute researchers Dr Shiraz Tyebji and Associate Professor Chris Tonkin, in collaboration with Professor Anthony Hannan at the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health.
[...] Associate Professor Tonkin said people could carry the dormant Toxoplasma parasite for decades, and that this had been associated with the appearance of symptoms of mental disorders such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
"Toxoplasma infections have been shown to cause long-term epigenetic changes in a range of cells around our body. These are changes that do not alter the genetic sequence of DNA, but influence gene expression – that is, which genes are switched on or off," he said.
[...] "We discovered that Toxoplasma infection alters levels of DNA-like molecules, called small RNA, that are carried by sperm," he said. "These changes in small RNA levels affect gene expression, and so could potentially influence brain development and behaviour of offspring.
"We were stunned to see that even the next generation – the 'grandchildren' of the original infected male – displayed changes in their behaviour," Dr Tyebji said.
Journal Reference:
Shiraz Tyebji, Anthony J. Hannan, Christopher J. Tonkin. Pathogenic Infection in Male Mice Changes Sperm Small RNA Profiles and Transgenerationally Alters Offspring Behavior. Cell Reports, 2020; 31 (4): 107573 DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2020.107573
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(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Thursday April 30 2020, @10:08PM (2 children)
Changes like say, *random* mutations?
Right after fustakrakich came out [soylentnews.org] about Fascism. What a coincidence.
(Score: 2) by legont on Thursday April 30 2020, @11:25PM (1 child)
It looks to me that environment triggers specific changes and randomness of them is simply a crude approximation of luck of knowledge. And that's me who is probability idea life long fan.
As per fascism, I guess there is a border somewhere between developing a better potato and a better future human. Nevertheless, it's obvious to me that we will have to adapt biologically or die.
Having said that, I don't really care about future generations. Let them care about themselves.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 01 2020, @12:32AM
No intelligent agent, let alone a prescient one, out there to meddle in living things' genomes. No one there to design a "specific change" to answer to any entirely new challenge.
Trying things at random and relying on blind luck and large numbers is the only way a dumb chemical machine can attempt to solve any design problem. A cell does not have the brains and knowledge to infer that low level of glucose is caused by "hooves too weak to dig edible things from under the snow", nor what parameters to tweak to get the "strong enough", nor where in the code to apply the tweaks.
The only non-random things a cell could possibly do, is vary the mutation rate and direct the mutations to safeish areas of code (ones where a random change is not 99% fatal, say). Anything more would require inputs and processing power which just are not there.