Epigenetics: Why Inheritance Is Weirder Than We Thought
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The sweet smell of fruit doesn’t normally send rats running. But when researchers pairedthe orange-cherry-almondy scent of the chemical acetophenone with a painful electric shock,lab rats quickly learned to fear it. Along the way, extra neurons sprouted in their nosesand in the smell-processing center of their brains, making them super-sensitive to thescent.This result isn’t shocking. What is surprising is that the rats' pups – and their pups'pups – were also startled by the smell of acetophenone and had the same extra neuronsas their fathers, despite never having been introduced to either their dads or the fruityscent before.But how could the pups have inherited something their fathers learned? Basic genetics tellsus that only DNA gets passed alo...
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The sweet smell of fruit doesn’t normally send rats running. But when researchers pairedthe orange-cherry-almondy scent of the chemical acetophenone with a painful electric shock,lab rats quickly learned to fear it. Along the way, extra neurons sprouted in their nosesand in the smell-processing center of their brains, making them super-sensitive to thescent.This result isn’t shocking. What is surprising is that the rats' pups – and their pups'pups – were also startled by the smell of acetophenone and had the same extra neuronsas their fathers, despite never having been introduced to either their dads or the fruityscent before.But how could the pups have inherited something their fathers learned? Basic genetics tellsus that only DNA gets passed alo...
