I really enjoyed this talk by Karen B. Michels on epigenetic inheritance (see video below):
Michels is a Radcliffe fellow (one of the top 50 artists/scholars as chosen by Harvard each year) and she begins the talk by explaining how when she first got the email informing her of her acceptance, she started screaming on a bus in rural Vietnam, and the other passengers may have thought “these foreigners are soooooooo weird”
I thought it was a funny story; her audience didn’t, but she was adaptable enough to quickly switch gears and dive right into epigenetic inheritance.
Epigenetics literally means “on top of genetics”, and the epigenome refers to the chemical tags placed on the DNA sequence to either silence or activate certain genes. Unlike our genome, which remains stable throughout our life unless we get rare mutations, the epigenome is much more sensitive to environmental effects like smoking and diet etc.
The question is, does this environmental damage to your epigenome get passed on to your kids? Many studies claim it can, including a very famous study in which the children of mice taught to fear a certain smell, also feared that smell.
However Michels explains that if you have kids, these epigenetic tags are removed not once, but twice, during fertalization, which should protect your kids from the environmental damage you did to your epigenome.
So how does Michels explain what looks like cases of environmental damage to the epigenome being passed on? A common example is a grandmother smoking during pregnancy causing obesity in grandkids. While this is commonly interpreted as a case of epigenetic inheritance (since smoking damages your epigenome), Michels explains that the grandkid didn’t nessecarily inherit her damaged epigenome from grandma, but rather smoking damaged the unborn female fetus (including its reproductive cells, thus damaging the future grandchild to boot).
Study after study proclaims “epigenetic inheritance” even though they don’t even come close to proving it (which would require four generations on the female line and three on the male line). Michels got so frustrated by the misleading use of the term “epigenetic inheritance” that she complained to Nature Genetics and their response was NOT INTERESTED.
The audience gasped.
Michels explained that the way you get published, tenure, and grants is to use epigenetics in your titles.
Michels does not deny epigenetic inheritance, she just feels there’s no evidence for it in humans (and presumably other complex animals) with the exception of genomic imprinting.
Overall I loved the talk, but what I really wanted to know was how an epigenetic inheritance skeptic like Michels explains how mice can be born to fear smells their parents were taught to fear.
Pumpkin Person 
i still say that if you’re in the 1% like peepee claims to be, haring is the most undervalued right now.
a basquiat has sold for $110m. the highest price paid for a haring is $4.9m. and haring is the better artist. basquiat has the death from heroin cache. but haring has the death from AIDS cache.
compare these paintings and see if you agree with me.
vs
i don’t like that. here’s the second highest haring.
of course my favorite is…
ian,
why are you doing this? why post all non topic related stuff? also in addition to being non topic related i and i am sure others here dont understand what you are trying to say. Dont take this as criticism or questioning, i am genuinely curious? what point are you trying to make? i simply dont get some of your posts like this one for example.
He is drunker…
why do you think i care?
what “one” learns is:
1. the very idea of “on topic” is anti-thetical to the human mind. it is insisted upon by “not very bright” people. autists.
2. fill in the blank.
i’ve made enough comments that none of my comments will ever be off topic or inappropriate. though they may be labeled as such by faggots.
My grandmother was 42 when she gave birth to my mom and my mom was the 5th child. I was the first child, have a sister and brother. All abused by our dad as babies. My dad was the last child in his family of 3. With all that in mind my mom seem different, she is not normal. I try to talk to her and she often just stares at me like an autistic child drools and doesn’t speak till 3 years old. I am normal my sister is normal, my brother is a super thing oriented person plays video games. I totally surpassed him in the Jedi video games we played. The dialogue is subtle, I can turn anyone to the dark or light side of the force because I know what is going on in character the designer made to hold different emotions for persuasion. Brother sucks at games with psychological involvement. He just masters the tools combinations. I convinced a man to open the door in the game. My brother bombed the door to open it. He is things oriented.
So my mom is like an aspie or mild retardation. She just looks like she is it out of it lights out most of the time. Maybe this is epigenetic in the womb of my grandmother age 42 and my brother is the last child. I like thing too but I was interested in fiction. Reading romance novels improves understanding of people one study claims. I was exposed to so many cartoons and movies and tv and I read stuff. I knew how to understand motives and such things but it was all based on how I got feelings from the emotions happening. Social intelligence was emotional, not cognitive so I was not the best at predicting what was happening but I understood how characters felt about things. I was good at the Jedi games because I knew what to say because I knew how they felt about something. My brother can’t really do that.
So I am not really good at predicting peoples actions but I know their feelings. My sister was a party animal and did drugs but she is pregnant now so stopped. She can get really angry and is high energy adventures spontaneous and impulsive. But she is normal, she understands what I saw. She has a gay friend that understands everything I say also (I guess he is either high energy or his IQ is around 130) The thing is that bill gates an efficiency freak, Steve Jobs was a sociopath (I sat the movie pirates of silicon valley in 7th grade) Mark Zuckerberg is oblivious. The guy fired from Google because of his gender memo. I saw the Jordan interview with him 15 minutes worth. He is not expressive and logical in a medium paced way. I talk super fast and pause allot, I kind of have a stutter, I am afraid of saying something inaccurate, I always correct myself. My mind is fast but I take time to congeal what needs to be said next. Mostly I do not make eye contact because it breaks my thinking process accessing what is in my mind and also I am scared of people looking at me. I can make eye contact with my sister but not others because of low trust and my insecurities. Sometimes people are so upset they say “don’t look at me”.
My mom was not there mentally. So I felt alone. Maybe she was born that way. Maybe its Maybelline. (epigenetics)
another on my top 10 list is The Chinese Connection. that was its name in america. in america lee’s first movie was called Fists of Fury. this was the original name of The Chinese Connection. the first movie’s original name was The Big Boss iirc. the second is best of lee’s movies. worth it just for one scene.
one needn’t be a teenage boy or into kung fu to see that bruce lee was special. 1 in a billion. that’s what his biographer said anyway. when i was a teenager i had a poster of him in my room.
this was the poster iirc.
bruce lee is another example of how the best are long dead. like secretariat.
gould’s point was that there is a human limit and that tony gwynn and ty cobb were close to it.
one thing he did not remark on is that baseball used to be the only sport in the US and has since become 1 of 3 major sports. or 4 if hockey is counted. so within the US it actually draws on a smaller talent pool than it used to. but now it draws on latin america, japan, and s korea also.
so professor shoe imagines that with the CRISPR he can select for hitters better than ted williams.
NOT GONNA HAPPEN PROFESSOR SHOE.
SAD!
“there is a human limit”
There should be an optimal way for wires to connect in the brain. Genes and diet should guide the process (connecting up). Along with whatever the intelligence is used for. Pumpkin says parallelism, I say bandwidth. Yes, there is a limit.
It would be cool if I could create things in my mind. My drawing IQ is 75.
NOT GONNA HAPPEN.
JOLTIN’ JOE HAS LEFT AND GONE AWAY.
56 GAME HITTING STREAK STILL THE SECRETARIAT OF BASEBALL.
i trusted that jew GOULD.
NEVER AGAIN!
shows his understanding of stats was NOT harvard level. sad!
dimaggio’s hitting streak is NOTHING compared to secretariat’s belmont.
NOTHING!
NOTHING AT ALL!
We examine Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak and look at its likelihood, using a
number of simple models. And it turns out that, contrary to many people’s expectations, an extreme streak, while unlikely in any given year, is not unlikely to have occurred
about once within the history of baseball. Surprisingly, however, such a record should
have occurred far earlier in baseball history: back in the late 1800’s or early 1900’s. But not in 1941, when it actually happened.
Click to access 0807.5082.pdf
no aspersions cast on dimaggio.
he was one of the best ever.
but his streak was just luck.
Speaking of Jewish IQ researchers talking about Joe DiMaggio’s hitting steak, here’s a Forbes article by the late Daniel Seligman:
https://www.forbes.com/forbes/1997/1013/6008040a.html
i remember where i was and what i was doing when i heard dimaggio had died.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitting_streak#Major_League_Baseball_records
Someone explain me why many europeans, very known as smoker-addicted, tend to be thinner than …. murricans***
Maybe european smokers are more prone to have ”over’-weight kids…
AGAIN the extremely INFAMOUS so-called ”studies” on non-human animals…
many scientists are not just evil but dumb in, for sure, sophisticated ways, but dumb…
Maybe we have A LOT OF overweight kids//and adults who are sons of non-smokers and even of healthier people, so how explain this bugs*
How myopia is ”epigenetically transferred”**
http://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/2085125/chinas-myopia-epidemic-why-simple-solution-being
Smoking lowers the body set weight and when one quits smoking their body set weight raises. You can see this when people quit smoking, they gain a few pounds. The causes is a change in metabolism.
American food is less regulated than european. Hence more trans fats and corn syrup.
another good thing obama did was make trans fats illegal in the US. there be a exceptions.
And ”epigenutz” are one of the most evil too…
Remember that
mices MAY are different than humans…
got it*
Another thing i don’t understand is that ”they” [this mentally retarded ”mad scientilts”] inseminate the mothers with the altered sperm OR ”they” made the mices that SUFFER this ” experiment ” to mate with the females in NORMAL conditions*
”They” take the proven altered-sperm and inseminate it to mothers….
Quality state of sperm may varies throughout the time, even at micro-time. In terms of aspect, sperm no doubt varies a lot.
Another thing maybe would be good to think is that nonhuman animals tend to have highly integrated body-”mind” system if compared with humans [and i’m not saying humans no have highly integrated body-mind system but, seems, it’s less than other living beings].
and wait…
”THEY” trained random chosen mices**
Or specially those who were more prone to learn this association*
”Information transfer from one generation to another, outside experts told the New Scientist, may play a role in human diseases such as obesity, diabetes …
and psychiatric disorders. ”
OK monsieur La Marque…
the next is …
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/descendants-of-holocaust-survivors-have-altered-stress-hormones/
Trainable mices tend to be more sensitive*
I remember one historical study showing differences of rates of homossexuality in sons of mothers-survivors who who were practically surrounded during the battle of Stalingrad. Higher levels of stress was determined as the cause for this possible epigenetic phenomenon.
Well…
stress became a …. ”buttlerfly”, 😉
but…
stressful children//adult**
But before to spread wild and conclusive speculations we must need analyse all related variables to detect any type of confounds.
Because (((second war world))) was a hell, i no doubt, and not just in Stalingrad, i wonder if this higher rates of homossexuality among pregnant mothers were very common in other places or…
Even it’s common the stereotype of neurotic//hyper-protective mothers AND homossexual sons, specially boys//men…
Also it’s seems factual the stereotype about hyper-protective jewish mothers and comparative higher rates of homossexuality//non-heterossexuality among jews than among non-jewish westerners…
Chicken or eggs**
Also we can think in
accumulative inter-generational mutational load [increase of pseudo-homozygosis: bottleneck within families with high mutational load, instead demographic communities, if people tend to be attracted to similar and//or fitted genetic background].
There is evidence for transgenerational epigenetic inheritance in humans. The best studied are from famines during WWII.
Michels would probably argue that’s likely intrauterine exposure.
Interesting photo. I wonder what Oprah thinks of Weinstein. I would imagine Weinstein acted nice to her to get favourable film reviews and/or bribed her in some way.
Very good insights about AIDS Robert.
The disease very promiscious men get is syphillis. This is something I’ve seen pornstars get. Not AIDS. I was always told you could get aids just mixing bodily fluids eg semen. I didn’t know you have to be exposed to blood.
straight anal is not condemned by islam. gay anal is condemned in the OT in Genesis and in the 613. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_against_nature
so jerry falwell was right.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4593809/jesse-helms
https://www.c-span.org/video/?11271-1/myth-heterosexual-aids
that should’ve been jesse helms not jerry falwell.
guy seems kinda gay himself. and he has the ‘tache.
but he’s an example of how politics and ideology affect what is promoted as fact and truth.
AFAIK, insurance co’s make losses on their underwriting more than usually in the general space. Ergo, you can make an assumption their models are modelly non normally distributed classes. I would suspect some classes like lawsuits in certain areas etc havent even had many observations.
in a high interest rate environment insurers can afford to make underwriting losses. those days are over. today they make an underwriting profit most of the time. underwriting expenses are usually 30% of premiums. that’s enormous and a lot bigger than it needs to be. compare it to a bank’s non-interest expenses vs interest. a bank with an efficiency ratio/cost-to-income ratio of 30% is super efficient, but the denominator is net interest not interest.
insurance premiums: insurance company ::
(a) deposits: bank
(b) interest on its assets: bank
could be either (a) or (b). it depends on the level of interest rates.
noble’s points are:
1. most genes are redundant. or their importance is only observable in extreme environments.
2. methylation isn’t the only means of non-DNA inheritance. RNA can also be inherited. the egg’s cytoplasm matters. it must be compatible with the nucleus. the money shot of his lecture was this.
3. the DNA is folded in a way, organized in a way, which makes mutations non-random.
4. (perhaps because of the built in redundancy) genes can change abruptly. rather than by accumulating one mutation after another, whole segments of DNA can be transposed and not harm the organism. 80% of knockouts had no effect he claimed. it would be a similar figure for mutations.
noble is actually a mathematician not a wet lab/field biologist.
Because he is or was a ”noble”, it’s doesn’t mean he will be right about everything, what most people never are…
”1. most genes are redundant. or their importance is only observable in extreme environments.”
But we are descendents of extreme environment-adaptations….
”4. (perhaps because of the built in redundancy) genes can change abruptly. rather than by accumulating one mutation after another, whole segments of DNA can be transposed and not harm the organism. 80% of knockouts had no effect he claimed. it would be a similar figure for mutations.”
Maybe specially when recessive harmful genes are not being expressed and in-combination with dynamic selective//and progressive [accumulative] scenario, for example, shekelnazi family living in Britain during all the period of industrial revolution [from its begining until XX century] and differential outcomes throughout generations.
”3. the DNA is folded in a way, organized in a way, which makes mutations non-random.”
Because robustness of organism is hugely required to fit well with its environment. Required robustness make mutations non-random because all mutations start from pre-determined points of refference. It’s explain why no have humans with bird wings…
The more I read about it, the more I’m starting to think biology is not very understood or at least very open to debate about inheritance. My suspicion is that lamarckianism is an example of how latter stage evolved organisms are given minds, precisely because the ‘algorithm’ that codes all this stuff thinks the organisms themselves can make better decisions beyond a certain ‘reflex’ or ‘instinctive’ drive. In a sense modern humans are the first AI in my opinion.
notice also that lamb treats fumento like a criminal. he asks him q after q about his biography and never gets to the substance of the book.
brian lamb is despicable.
the vid is also an example of how environmental change can result in yuge phenotypic change.
the vid is from feb 1990. lamb is 48 and fumento is only 30 or 31.
they both look much older…by today’s standards.
the knuckleball (kb) as synecdoche for american society:
1. the kb is effective, but…
a. it’s very hard to learn.
b. it’s slow and can be learned by pitchers without speed.
2. it is strange. it has some defects. lots of wild pitches.
3. scouts select based on speed. the kb is a complication they don’t want to deal with.
wakefield was drafted as a 2d baseman. he wasn’t good enough. so he became a kb pitcher.
notice how slow the pitch is.
prole…
However, the titles were accidentally reversed. The Big Boss was released as Fists of Fury and Fist of Fury became The Chinese Connection.[4] Film purists refer to the films by their original titles.
Man, what a deep intellctual!
i refute atheism thus:
Like american hollywood = PROLE!!