is it possible to write something that we learned during the life into our DNA? Is it possible that we carry some kind of small "encyclopedia" in our genes in which is written something that our ancestors did.. I don't mean things like F=ma, but some kind of knowledge? maybe language, some words that are often used, or how you can make fire, or something like that..
the human knowledge and DNA
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Teetotaler
Registered Senior Member
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thats exactly what life does...people pass their genes...the visual image with all the functions...
RoyLennigan
Registered Senior Member
its called evolution...
Beware Lamarckian leanings.
Think Baldwinian.
Experience isn't directly transmitted through genetics and inheritance, however some types of behavior can be slowly selected into the genes by way of limiting genetic diversity.
That is, a species is capable of a wide variety of behaviors in a certain area. One particular type of behavior in this area is selected for over many generations.
Eventually, the animal loses the capability of the wide variety of behaviors and centers on the selected for behavior.
Specialization.
The vervet monkey is the common example of this type of evolution. It, as a species, has a genetically inherited predisposition to give certain distress calls from certain stimulus.
Different distress calls from snakes, eagles, and leopards.
Each predator requires a unique response thus the selection value.
However, this behavior is not completely strict. Some social coaching is needed to become an expert at differentiating the various predators. That is, young monkeys sometimes make mistakes. They might make the eagle distress call for a sparrow. That sort of thing.
Think Baldwinian.
Experience isn't directly transmitted through genetics and inheritance, however some types of behavior can be slowly selected into the genes by way of limiting genetic diversity.
That is, a species is capable of a wide variety of behaviors in a certain area. One particular type of behavior in this area is selected for over many generations.
Eventually, the animal loses the capability of the wide variety of behaviors and centers on the selected for behavior.
Specialization.
The vervet monkey is the common example of this type of evolution. It, as a species, has a genetically inherited predisposition to give certain distress calls from certain stimulus.
Different distress calls from snakes, eagles, and leopards.
Each predator requires a unique response thus the selection value.
However, this behavior is not completely strict. Some social coaching is needed to become an expert at differentiating the various predators. That is, young monkeys sometimes make mistakes. They might make the eagle distress call for a sparrow. That sort of thing.
That sounds very Lamarckian.
Reversing evolution
My dear friends of biology,
On a related note I would like to share the following story with you all.
It is about genetic memory.
Arabidopsis thaliana is the workhorse of plant biology. Some researchers noticed something strange. They made mutants and some of the offspring of these mutants mysteriously reverted back to the ancestral state of the mutation as it was present in their 'grand-parents'. A mutation was undone!
Obviously the first reaction was 'contamination'. Somehow the original stock had contaminated the mutant line. But no, that proved not to be the case.
There is a mechanism in place in this plant that can reverse mutations after a generation has passed. Some kind of genetic memory that is not stored in the DNA. And it is braking Mendel's laws.
It is not clear what this mechanism is exactly and if it is present in animals or other plants.
What is clear is that this mechanism could have a clear evolutionary advantage. It is good for plants to mutate and they do so very easily. But sometimes mutations are not good. If a small fractions of the mutants can revert back to the original state after a 'field-test' of one generation the risks are minimized.
Interstingly in transgenic mouse research you have the phenomena that the mutant you are looking for is always under-represented in the offspring of crosses. There could be many reasons for this. Often mutants die at a very early developmental stage so there are always less born than expected. Or could it be that mutations are reversed? Heterozygotes ok, but the DNA machinery says 'Please no homozygote mutants for me today!'
references:
Reversing evolution in Arabidopsis thaliana
http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2005/323/2
Speculation on mouse:
spuriousmonkey (take it with a grain of salt)
RoyLennigan
Registered Senior Member
actually, mice that have the genes that cause them to become fat have babies that have genes that cause them to become fat.
I read that they take mice with skinny genes, get em into big ol fatties, breed them with other skinny mice, and if they're fat, their offspring, which should have skinny genes, have a disposition to getting fat.
could be a nursing effect. Lots of milk production in fat mice. Maybe even fattier milk. Making the offspring react physiologically to an enriched diet at an early age.
Hi Spuriousmonkey.
I enjoyed your post 9 story. It reminded me of something that made quite a stir about 40 or 50 years ago. It concerned a type of worm. (Planariums, I think they were called. I also seen to remember from the photos that they have a flat, somewhat arrow shaped head - just to help you know the worm I am speaking of. They will eat ground up pieces of their own kind.)
Someone, probably a graduate psychology student, trained them to transverse a maze. They got to be good enough to clearly have learned something about how to efficiently get thru the maze. These "well trained" worms were then ground up and feed to others who had never seen the maze and yes these cannibal worms did either learn the maze much more quickly or did better on the first few tries than by chance etc. (I forget the details.)
Mainly I remember the note written on the posted copy of the journal article: It said: "Why study? Eat your professor!"*
Have you heard of this? Was it later shown to be fraud? If not, how do you think the knowledge was stored and survived the digestive process? I never heard more about it after the initial month of considerable interest.
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*The vulgar interpretation helped me remember. Once when I was posting on a university bulletin board an article about how black holes could be approaching Earth undetected, (and plugging my cosmic horror story book, Dark Visitor), I did this. The headline was “A black hole is coming for you.”
I enjoyed your post 9 story. It reminded me of something that made quite a stir about 40 or 50 years ago. It concerned a type of worm. (Planariums, I think they were called. I also seen to remember from the photos that they have a flat, somewhat arrow shaped head - just to help you know the worm I am speaking of. They will eat ground up pieces of their own kind.)
Someone, probably a graduate psychology student, trained them to transverse a maze. They got to be good enough to clearly have learned something about how to efficiently get thru the maze. These "well trained" worms were then ground up and feed to others who had never seen the maze and yes these cannibal worms did either learn the maze much more quickly or did better on the first few tries than by chance etc. (I forget the details.)
Mainly I remember the note written on the posted copy of the journal article: It said: "Why study? Eat your professor!"*
Have you heard of this? Was it later shown to be fraud? If not, how do you think the knowledge was stored and survived the digestive process? I never heard more about it after the initial month of considerable interest.
------------------------------------------------------------
*The vulgar interpretation helped me remember. Once when I was posting on a university bulletin board an article about how black holes could be approaching Earth undetected, (and plugging my cosmic horror story book, Dark Visitor), I did this. The headline was “A black hole is coming for you.”