| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Newo |
Posted - 08/16/2005 : 14:51:29
I read once that scientists call 90% of DNA 'silent' or 'junk DNA' because they don't know what it does but two Germans, Fosar and Bludorf have written a book called Vernetzte Intelligenz about what a few Russian researchers have found about it, it's only in German at the moment but they have written a brief review in English I'm finding fascinating:
The Biological Chip in our Cells
Revolutionary results of modern genetics
by Grazyna Fosar and Franz Bludorf
Light is in principle the oldest and most important food of the world, and still in addition - understood as electromagnetic wave - a perfect storage medium.
We know today that life in the universe is a process which is always swiming against the river. Physics predicts that everything in nature is going towards a condition of a thermal equilibrium. With every energy consuming process always also warmth is produced, which cannot be completely reconverted into work energy. This is well-known to each power station operator.
The universe favours disorder and decay rather than order and structure.
In such an environment an organism can temporarily exist only because it constantly supplies new order structures to its body using energy , briefly said: by taking up food regularly.
For this the plants found the simplest and most direct way. With help of their leaf pigment chlorophyll they developed a procedure, in order to produce sugar from carbon dioxide of air and water using light. Plants thus predominantly nourish themselves from light. They take up energy and order condition from light particles (photons), which they integrate into their organism, thus robbing them their freedom of movement and building up own order conditions of their bodies again and again.
The animals and humans however have a metabolism which is based not on chlorophyll, but on haemoglobin, the red blood coloring material. They therefore cannot convert light to food by photosynthesis, but have to nourish themselves eating plants or other animals. They are thus rather parasites of the plant world, which also could exist without us - we however not without them. We should always keep this in mind, when we clear further forests from pure profit thinking.
Light nevertheless plays a crucial role for animal and human life too. Not only, because we become depressive if we do not expose our body with sufficient light (especially in winter).
German bio physicist Fritz Albert Popp investigates for years the phenomenon of biophotons, a natural light radiation, which is emitted from each living organism. This bio photon radiation is very weak and may be made visible only by substantial reinforcement in the darkroom.
Popp and its coworkers made the amazing observation that the radiant emittance was always stronger at the beginning, briefly after they brought a tissue probe into the darkroom, and then slowly decreased to a stable value, the normal bio photon radiation.
That means, that our body cannot only emit light, but also may take up light from the environment, which is naturally in the darkroom no longer possible, whereby it comes to the observed decrease. Thus something inside our body may store light energy, which is a proof that we nourish ourselves to a small percentage directly of light too, independently of the food which we eat.
It turned out soon that the looked for light memory of our body is nothing else than the DNA. It is well known that the DNA is also most deeply involved into the bio photon radiation.
From the characteristic form of this giant molecule - a wound double helix - the DNA represents an ideal electromagnetic antenna. On one hand it is elongated and thus a blade antenna, which can take up very well electrical pulses. On the other hand, seen from above it has form of a ring and thus is a very good magnetical antenna.
What happens to the electromagnetic energy, which the DNA takes up? It is stored quite easily inside it, bringing the molecule – simplified spoken – into oscillation. Physically we call such a system a harmonic oscillator .
Such an oscillator of course with the time loses its energy, as is observable also in the darkroom, and the time, which this procedure needs, is a measure for the ability of energy storage. Physicists call this measure resonator quality .
It turned out that the quality of the DNA resonator is by a multiple higher as in oscillators, which physicists are able to construct in their laboratories from technical devices. That means, the oscillation losses are unbelievably small. This confirms a long-preserved assumption: The DNA is an organic superconductor, which can still work in addition at normal body temperature! In this field science may learn still infinitely much from nature.
For example the ability of superconductors to store light was just discovered in recent time. That sounds perhaps surprising, but you should keep yourself clear before eyes the fact that light, although well known to all of us is not anything actually seizable. Light is pure electromagnetic energy, divided into small quanta, so-called photons, which – like the name already says – constantly move with speed of light. We may destroy photons by certain particle reactions, i.e. transfer their energy completely to other subjects. To "close up" a photon however, no one was able to do so far.
At the Rowland research institute in Cambridge, USA, now the Harvard physicist Lene Vestergaard Hau found out that laser light can be braked when crossing sodium atoms with nearly -270 degrees up to a speed of approximately 60 kilometers per hour. That is approximately the speed, with which we move forward with our cars on highways. For light particles it it is an absolute "snail speed". (the speed of light in the vacuum amounts to nevertheless 300.000 kilometers per second!)
Basic condition for this brake effect is that the medium must change into a very exotic state of aggregation, a so-called Bose Einstein condensate, which likewise includes the ability for superconduction too.
Already for a long time we know that the constance of speed of light, which represents a border in the universe according to Einstein for all subjects, applies only to the vacuum. During the passage of matter, approximately of water or glass, the speed of light is already lower. The disadvantage is that also the light itself is absorbed at the same time by the surrounding medium. From the water we know it that it becomes darker with increasing depth.
Not so with superconductors. Although the sodium atoms braked the light much more strongly than each conventional material, they remained transparent. No losses arose.
Such possibilities can become very interesting in the future, if one wants to store not only the energy of the light (as is the case for instance with the solar collector), but the light as a whole with all its characteristics e.g. the ability to be a storage medium.
Superconducting computer chips will be thus capable to store light and to use it thereby for data storage. Nature invented that everything, as we see, already billions of years ago.
We humans carry thus in each cell of our body a technical high speed equipment: a microchip with 3 Gigabits storage capability, which takes up electromagnetic information from the environment, stores it and - possibly in changed form - also is able to emit.
The technical data of the DNA as oscillator antenna are quickly determined. We know that the molecule would be - stretched out - about two meters long. Thus it has a natural frequency of 150 megahertz. Again a remarkable number, because this frequency is exactly in the range our human radar -, for telecommunications and microwave engineering. We use exactly the same frequency range for communication and detection purposes. A coincidence?
In addition the DNA may obviously store all harmonic waves of 150 megahertz too, thus of course also visible light. The 22th octave of 150 megahertz lies straight in this range. The color of this light radiation is by the way blue. Is it a coincidence that the solar radiation is broken by the terrestrial atmosphere just in such a way that we live in a world with blue sky?
So, does the DNA only take up the light energy, or stores and/or again emits information contained in the electromagnetic oscillation of the light by its radiant emittance? Is the DNA a further communication organ of our body, and may it perhaps even be manipulated by electromagnetic radiation?
This is actual the case. Independent of the biochemical function as a protein producer the DNA is a complicated electronic biological chip that communicates with its environment, as latest research from Russia found out.
In the year 1990 a group of scientists got together in Moscow, for whom the study of the human Genoms was too much reduced exclusively to biochemistry. They had recognized that by this viewpoint, which is based rather on orthodox dogmatism than on objective scientific realizations a lot of information remains hidden to us.
Highly-qualified scientists belong to this group, to a large extent from the Russian Academy of Sciences. Beside physicists of the renowned Lebedev institute also molecular biologists participate, bio physicists, geneticists, embryologists and linguists. Director of the project is Dr. Pjotr Garjajev, a bio physicist and molecular biologist. He is member of the Russian Academy of Sciences as well as of the Academy of Sciences in New York.
In the eight years since establishment of the project the Muscovite group came to revolutionary realizations, which let our understanding of the DNA and the human genetics appear in a completely new light.
For example we speak today nearly naturally of the »genetic code«, thus of a systematic information coding. But the past genetics stopped here and settled the remainder of the work exclusive with the help of chemistry, instead of consulting also language experts.
Differently in Moscow. Here, as already mentioned, the genetic code was submitted an exact investigation by linguists too.
Linguistics is the science of the structure of languages. It investigates thereby not only the natural languages, which developed in the individual countries and cultures, but also artificial languages, which are used for example for programming computers and which were developed in the past decades systematically using linguistic realizations.
One examines semantics (theory of the meaning of the words) and language regularities like the syntax (rules for the setting up of words from letters), as well as the bases of the grammar.
If one uses these scientific realizations on the genetic code, then one recognizes that this code follows the same rules as our human languages.
Mind you: not the rules of a certain language (in this case e.g. the Russian one), but on such a fundamental level, where all existing languages of mankind have comparable structures. So it is possible to set the structure of the genetic code in relationship with each existing language of mankind.
For centuries scientists looked for the human original language - Pjotr Garjajev and his coworkers possibly found it.
We must turn around the relations: the structure of the DNA does not correspond to the human language structure, but the human languages follow the genetic code in their structure the rules! DNA and genetic code existed already for a long time, before first humans spoke an articulated word for the first time! Every human languages developed since that time followed the basic pattern, already existing in the structure of the genetic code.
You should not misunderstand this realization: It does not concern here an orthodox materialistic conception of the world, according to which the ability for speaking would be only a secondary effect of proteins, which are put on in some genes. The arrangement of the elementary bases in the DNA follows a grammar, an immaterial plan, which is similar to the structure of our languages.
The fact that no physical procedure is concerned here is proved by the next discovery of Garjajev's team: The analogy between the structure of the DNA and the human language is most pronounced just in the parts of the giant molecule, which are not used for protein synthesis!
For a long time one knows that only about 10 per cent of the DNA molecule are used for setting up genes. The remaining 90 per cent have a function unknown to classical science and were designated so far as »silent DNA«.
Garjajev's realization thus is a revolution for the entire area of genetics. Examining only the well-known genes calling the remainder »silent DNA«, you will miss the most important facts! It is paradoxical: just the »silent DNA« - figurativy spoken - speaks a language!
In various experiments the Muscovites group could prove that these extensive codes in the DNA are not used by any means for the synthesis of a so far unknown quantity of components of our body, as it is the case with the genes. This code is rather actually used for communication, more exactly - for hypercommunication.
Hypercommunication is a data exchange on DNA level using genetic code. Since this code possesses a structure, which is the basis of all human languages, also higher information may be transported, which is able to come up to human consciousness and to be interpreted there.
Garjajev and its colleague continued still another step. They analyzed the vibration response of the DNA and found out that it follows quite complicated laws, which are however well known in the physics for a long time.
Those are the laws of nonlinear waveform-shaping, known since center of 19 century as so-called Soliton waves. They are known from observations, but so complicated that they may be calculated only with modern computers. Soliton waves are temporally extraordinarily stable and may store information in this way for a long time.
Summarizing all these realizations, one comes to a perfectly new form of the genetic engineering, possibly even to a new gene therapy.
Concerning this Pjotr Garjajev writes: »The majority tries to understand the principles of the DNA biological computer by appointing oneself exclusively to the DNA Watson Crick Chargaff rules: A-T, G-C. That is correct, but it is so not enough! The DNA chromosomale continuum in living systems has wave attributes, which lets us derive the unknown, a computer-similar program for the setting up of the organisms. The well-known genetic code is a code for protein synthesis and nothing further. Chromosomes in vivo work as solitonic holographic computers under use of the endogenous DNA laser radiation.«
This sounds like science of the 21st century and probably is. But don't forget: Garjajevs statements are founded scientifically in theory and experiment.
The consequences of these realizations are as incomprehensible as simple and logical: If one modulates a laser beam by a frequency sample, then one may affect with this the information of the DNA waves and so the genetic information itself.
For this one does not even need to decode the language of the pairs of bases in laborious work, in order to formulate from it artificially genetic information, but one can use quite easily words and sentences of the human language! The bases of the language structures are, as we in now know, the same.
Also this astonishing conclusion the Muscovites group of researchers could prove already experimentally. DNA substance in vivo (i.e. in the living fabric, not in the test tube) reacts to language-modulated laser light, even to radio waves, if one keeps the correct resonant frequencies.
In this way unknown possibilities are opened to the medicine. One may design devices, with which through suitably modulated radio or light radiation cell metabolism may be affected, even the repair of genetic defects is possible, without all the risks and side effects of the classical-biochemical proceeding.
Garjajevs group of researchers could already prove that with this method chromosomes may be repaired, which were damaged e.g. by x-rays. The effects on medical therapy possibilities of the coming century are immense: one can develop devices for new, subtle cancer therapy, also for the treatment of aids and for the slowing down of the aging process.
Already today devices are in use also in German university clinics, with whose assistance cancer patients are exposed to frequency-modulated magnetic field irradiation. The results are promising.
We see here that the objectives of the Muscovites researchers deviate from those of the western human Genome Project in principle. While in the western science the trend is to develop new chemical medicines from as much as possible items of information from the genes - a procedure, which is however not free from substantial risks, a potential giant business -, the Russian scientists have a rather holistic understanding of the DNA leading to the development of therapy devices, which may replace some expensive and dangerous medicine in the long term.
Quite beside from the new wave theory of the genetic code still some further interesting facts follow. For example one knows for a long time that almost any bodily function, particularly also in the metabolism and in the hormone production, can be affected by suggestive strength of the spoken word, although they run perfectly autonomously, thus under elimination of the conscious will, whereupon the impact of the medical hypnosis is based. These facts are well-known, however could not be explained so far scientifically.
The medical model of the psycho neuro immunology led back the effect of hypnotic suggestions so far exclusively to control mechanisms in the brain, particularly in the regions, which are assumed to contain subconscious layers.
Now it looks that it is much simpler: the DNA is able to react directly to the spoken word.
Also different therapy procedures, whose impact was inexplicable so far, as for instance the Chinese acupunkture, may be explained with help of the DNA wave theory in Garjajev's opinion scientifically.
If we summarize the research results of Professor Popp and Professor Garjajev, then a remarkable connection results: Light actually represents an important factor in the power supply of our hereditary molecule, the DNA. It provides healthy functioning of all procedures in our cells. However it cannot form a complete replacement for material food alone.
The information, which will transfer via the light, is much more important. The DNA communicates in this way - perhaps with other organisms or with a superordinate plan - which a morphogenetic field, which could be proven by the research in Russia for the first time scientifically.
In this way the genetic information of each cell can employ comparisons of their actual condition with a specified condition each time and arrange possibly necessary repairs. This can prevent or at least stop diseases such as cancer or aids, in addition, slow down the age process.
The modern wave genetics is one of the key technologies for the coming millennium, and we can be strained, what science will discover in this area in the very near future.
Fig. 1: The double helix of the DNA is at the same time ring and blade antenna
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Develop interest in life as you see it; in people, things, literature, music -- the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself. |
| 35 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Newo |
Posted - 08/20/2005 : 05:13:05
Leftbrainrightbrain I didn't say scientists but education, based on experience in school, uni, teaching and teaching teachers and professors - from what I saw all the way though was the distribution of activities that stimulate the right and left hemispheres is so wildly uneven I could only take it to be intentional.
I understand it is nothing new, I figured it out when I realised I could heal a sore stomach or kidney or bladder by visualising it bathed in warm white light a few years ago, like I said just underlooked in comparison to say, state narcotics.
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Develop interest in life as you see it; in people, things, literature, music -- the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself. |
| darwin |
Posted - 08/19/2005 : 09:19:43
In evolutionary biology, studying the interaction of environment and genotype is a very old and well established area of study. We're finding out more cool stuff about the mechanisms, but I don't think it's very novel to think that our morpholohy and behavior is a result of that interaction.
Left/right brain: I think it's overstated to say that scientists don't use their right hemisphere very often. At least in some areas of science, creativity and being able to see things from different perspectives is a key to being a good (and successful) scientist. My main job is thinking about how I think individuals interact with each other and their environments. What kind of rules and behaviors would best adapt an individual to their environment? This allows alot of creativity in regards to how to put the pieces together. |
| Newo |
Posted - 08/19/2005 : 06:44:14
And the guy said that about DNA on/off in the article. What they're getting at is the capability of the rat's beliefs to alter physiology makeup based on external stimuli. I'm not saying it's heretofore undiscovered, just underlooked as a way to explore how humans could possibly heal themselves instad of bombing their systems with pharmaceuticals every time they feel bad.
Edit: changed hitherto to heretofore.
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Develop interest in life as you see it; in people, things, literature, music -- the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself. |
| Newo |
Posted - 08/19/2005 : 06:22:06
What grabbed me was the idea our physical makeup isn't as hardwired as we assume. (though if that's all it is, I'm amazed that a bunch of scientists bothered turning rats into heroinaddicts to find out something they already knew)
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Develop interest in life as you see it; in people, things, literature, music -- the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself. |
| Llamadance |
Posted - 08/19/2005 : 05:46:34
Newo, these articles indicate that the DNA's responses change depending on the external stimulus. For instance, different genes are expressed if mother rat is calm, rather than stressed. That's not a change in the fundamental DNA, it's a change in which gene is switched on or off.
Maybe a rat which is raised in a calm environment learns that behaviour, and passes it on to their offspring. Maybe if you put the offspring of the rat with the learned calm behaviour into a stressed family environment it would be more likely to be stressed than the offspring of a naturally calm rat. DNA acts like a framework, but environment and learning builds the fine detail.
No power in the 'verse can stop me
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| Newo |
Posted - 08/19/2005 : 05:28:53
Something else I found at http://www.nida.nih.gov/DirReports/DirRep503/DirectorReport1.html
Active Heroin Administration Induces Specific Genomic Responses in the Nucleus Accumbens Shell
The shell of the nucleus accumbens (NAc) is a brain region important for reward by mediating retrieval of learned associations affecting goal-directed behavior. Dr. Anton N.M. Schoffelmeer and his colleagues studied the genomic response in the rat NAc after long-term withdrawal of active and passive heroin administration. Using different cohorts of rats with a history of heroin or cocaine exposure, they validated and examined a set of 40 transcripts that is down-regulated in the NAc shell after long-term cessation of heroin self-administration by real-time quantitative PCR. They found that active, but not passive administration induces long-term genomic responses in the NAc shell. These down-regulated transcripts comprise a large functional diversity of proteins involved in basic cellular processes such as neuronal growth, apoptosis, signal transduction, neuropeptide synthesis and release, transcription, translation, and cell metabolism. These data indicate that cellular processes are still affected long after extinction of heroin self-administration. Combined with the integral role of the NAc shell with the limbic system, the authors suggest that long-lasting changes in cellular functional may change synaptic transmission in related brain structures. They also point out that these genomic changes outlast simple pharmacological effects of the drugs themselves. Taken together, drug-seeking behavior may be a direct result of altered genetic and cellular networks. Jacobs, E.H., Spijker, S., Verhoog, C.W., Kamprath, K., DeVries, T.J., Smit, A.B., and Schoffelmeer, A.N.M. Active Heroin Administration Induces Specific Genomic Responses in the Nucleus Accumbens Shell. FASEB J, 16(14), pp. 1961-1963, 2002.
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Develop interest in life as you see it; in people, things, literature, music -- the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself. |
| Newo |
Posted - 08/19/2005 : 04:47:54
This came out in The Scotsman last year about an orgnic chemist who started studying what effect faith or belief might have one out genetic makeup. http://news.scotsman.com/scitech.cfm?id=1386262004
The excerpt I liked:
'"I have found around 500 scientific papers from mainstream academic journals which directly talk about the effect that thought, feeling and faith have on the body’s systems," he says.
Recent research into spontaneous remissions from cancer found that a radical change of belief system seemed to be a common factor. While few would argue with the idea that a good attitude can speed the healing process, Hamilton believes emotions, such as happiness, can change DNA.
What is surprising is that a growing body of scientific thought appears to agree with him.
As an example, Hamilton quotes the work of Eric Kandel, joint winner of the 2000 Nobel prize for medicine, who carried out pioneering work into the way genes can be switched on or off by social influences.
Kandel’s conclusion is that many genetic differences between people are influenced by society and conditioning, rather than incorporated in the genetic makeup of the parents.
HAMILTON SAYS: "About 99.9 per cent of our genes are exactly the same. The differences between us are determined by whether our genes are switched on or off.
"There is a whole branch of medicine called psycho-neuro-immunology, which studies the effect of thoughts and emotions on our biochemistry. The biochemistry is intimately connected with the DNA, so if these biologichemical components are affected by thoughts and emotions then thoughts and emotions must also affect our DNA."
He also cites a well-known scientific study of rat pups which showed that two separate growth hormones are switched off in those deprived of a mother’s touch. By pulling together the evidence that love and kindness can have a positive effect on health, Hamilton hopes to make people more aware of their own healing power. '
Checking up on this Kandel guy and the 'well-known study' I found this Acrobat doc called an Integrative Approach to Psychopathology http://64.78.63.75/samples/Barlow2Sec.pdf on page 35 (page 9 of the pdf) there's a pretty interesting section called Nongenomic "Inheritance" of Behaviour. Bunch of guys it mentions were studying stress reactivity and any generational effects in rats. They took rat pups of fearful and easily stressed mothers and raised them instead with calm mothers. Article sez: 'Francis et al (1999) demonstrated that calm and supportive behaviour by the mothers could be passed on through the generations of rats independent of genetic influence, because rats born to easily stressed mothers grew up more calm and supportive. The authors conclude that "these findings suggest that individual differences in the expressions of genes in brain regions that regulate stress activity can be transmitted from one generation to the next through behaviour...the results suggest that the mechanism for this pattern of inheritance involves differences in maternal care."'
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Develop interest in life as you see it; in people, things, literature, music -- the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself. |
| Newo |
Posted - 08/19/2005 : 03:42:02
quote:
*disclaimer - this is all mad thinking
When my band and I do this we call it 'improvisation'. Our education system, and by extension a goodly part of our society, is almost entirely made up of activities dominated by the left hemisphere of the brain - logical, verbal, analytical, judgemental, while those that stimulate the right hemisphere (creative, visual, intuitive, emotional) like music and art are being phased out, or at least are very far down on the prioritylist of the curriculum. The flowers and fluff part of you, as you put it, need only battle it out with the sensible how-your-world-works part if you want it that way, to me they function as a harmonious whole. What you were doing wasn't mad but quite healthy. |
| starmekitten |
Posted - 08/18/2005 : 13:31:17
I am having to think a little sideways with this and put it across in a way I don't like doing.
quote:
Is the DNA remembering or has past events caused responses which change the environment and these cause the DNA to interact differently with the environment? The DNA isn't being changed, so I don't think it's proper to say that the DNA is remembering. Information about past environments isn't being stored in the DNA (well, that's not true, selection caused by past environments is being stored in the frequency of different alleles, natural selection), but rather in biochemical pathways. I am right?
The DNA does not change, The DNA that you get will stay with you forever and will not, normally, alter in any significant way . But the regulation of that DNA may, this is what epigenetics as far as I understand it is getting at. I say remembering because it's just the easiest way of saying it. I could say that methylation patterns are an inheritable trait so environmental factors affecting a distant relative can be shown in your phenotype. In that way the environment is affecting the DNA, not by altering it in any way, but in chosing how it functions, which genes will be silenced and which will be necessary. Like the group who suffered the Dutch famine, comparative studies have shown phenotypic anomalies in subsequent generations, a reduced birthweight an increase in incidences of disease, due to not anything the individual suffering this has done, or any alteration in the individuals DNA but in the inherited epigenetic factors. In this way it is like a memory I think but not a memory of the individual, how can it be? the individual did not go through the time of famine so this rememberance is locked within the regulation of the DNA. I'm not sure I'm putting this well.
quote:
So, I think it's an issue of time scales. DNA stores information from previous generations, but I don't think it stores information from an individuals current lifetime. However, epigenetic effects can occur because an individuals experience during their lifetime affects their success (finding food and mates, avoiding predators) and this affects the biochemical environment within their bodies where DNA is producing proteins
Ah you see I think it does, not in normal evolutionary or genetic terms though. The storing is not by function of alteration of DNA itself but in alteration of control. It's like there's these two ideas of genetics which are not exclusive of each other, the mendelian genetics and inheritance, and then the epigenetic inheritance. Mendelian concentrating on what genes you get and epigenetic concentrating on which of those will work and how.
quote:
Not sure what "at that DNA level" means. I don't think our DNAs are talking to each other, but we are constantly taking in information (signals and cues) and that information affects our morphology and behavior. How we use that information is selected by the success of the responses of our ancestors.
Again, me bungling up the lingo because I've got my head on three ways at once.
*disclaimer - this is all mad thinking with no knowledge behind it whatsoever*
I don't think DNA talks to each other, but if the environment, in terms of epigenetics can 'talk' to the DNA then signals that we as individuals give off could ***in theory*** talk to the DNA too. I was thinking about the systemic response to wounding and invasion in plants, how if you damage one plant in a group it's first defence is slow as it deals with it, if you wound it again the systemic response means that dealing with the wounding is faster. If you then inflict wounding on a nearby plant it has a much faster response than a normal unnaflicted plant, because of signalling compounds like jasmonic acid (methyl jasmonate I think to be technical) triggering those defence genes. I was thinking if environmental factors could control those epigenetic factors could it be that signalling molecules we emitt would give a similar response in humans as the methyl jasmonate would in plants? (to over simplify things) would it be like an early warning system to tell us what physiological responses should occur in these times and would that be a consideration in epignetic study?
I have no basis for this, it's me thinking and I'm finding it tough to switch between science and waffle as well as think about these cannabinoids I'm supposed to be writing about which I'll be honest, are dull. So if you think I'm missing the mark, slap me. Metaphorically speaking.
(and I was unhappy with that post as soon as I wrote it, hehe, but too brain dead to prat about with it)
I actually have to write a paper on epigenetics, maybe I'll do it sooner than I was meaning to.
You begin saving the world by saving one person at a time; all else is grandiose romanticism or politics |
| darwin |
Posted - 08/18/2005 : 12:42:12
quote:
Originally posted by starmekitten
and I think of it as a biological function that could be inherant within the control of our DNA that isn't fully comprehended. The DNA remembers what has happened to it, it remembers way back to what your grandparents were up to, even further back than that.
Is the DNA remembering or has past events caused responses which change the environment and these cause the DNA to interact differently with the environment? The DNA isn't being changed, so I don't think it's proper to say that the DNA is remembering. Information about past environments isn't being stored in the DNA (well, that's not true, selection caused by past environments is being stored in the frequency of different alleles, natural selection), but rather in biochemical pathways. I am right?
quote:
When a plant is invaded by a pathogen is has two types of defence the immediate and the long term response, the first response deals with minimising the damage, the second response in Memory. The plant remembers for a long time afterwards what this pathogenic attack feels like and knows how to respond to it. Not just that plant, but all those nearby know how to deal with it, whether thay have had that particular attack or not. It's all signals and stimuli.
Cool, something I actually know a bit about - plasticity and inducible defenses. Yeah, plants and animals change their morphology and behavior in response to changes in their environments, particularly predators. A plant will produce more defensive compounds after a herbivore has nibbled on it and in some cases when nearby plants have been nibbled on. A tadpole will forage less, perhaps mature quicker, develop different body forms when they smell that other tadpoles are being eaten. However, memory is tricky word. In many cases these changes are irreversible. For example, once morphology has changed it is very slow to change it again. So, the individual keeps the defense, but does that mean they remember past environments? In fact, in many cases it can be experimentally shown that past environments do affect how individuals estimate the danger of their environment. But, this doesn't require the DNA to remember what has happened to the individual earlier in their life - the brain and morphology can do this. However, the DNA by way of natural selection (as I said earlier) is affected by the environments that ancestors have experienced. So, animals that have evolved in environments with many predators behave differently than those from predator free environments (best example - birds from islands without mammal predators, who get wiped out by novel predators because they don't have proper responses to predators).
So, I think it's an issue of time scales. DNA stores information from previous generations, but I don't think it stores information from an individuals current lifetime. However, epigenetic effects can occur because an individuals experience during their lifetime affects their success (finding food and mates, avoiding predators) and this affects the biochemical environment within their bodies where DNA is producing proteins.
quote:
I imagine, although I have nothing conclusive to back this up and I refuse to look because I'm too busy, that external stimuli affects the DNA which could trigger off signals and response through epigenetic control that we as an individual have no memory of, but may be a stimuli an ancestor of ours had experience of. The DNA knows how to respond because it's been there before, it reaches us as a sort of memory we may not have and because we can't explain knowing XY or Z because we have never undergone or felt it before it gathers this label of unknown. I doubt any emotion or feeling or understanding we have now is new or unique to us as individuals, there is some part of us that has been there and has done that, so what we think we know isn't all that we do know. I also doubt that experience is limited to the individual line, I imagine that if one person in a group undergoes a traumatic experience this will affect the rest of the group as well, not just in terms of picking up stress hormones but at that DNA level.
Not sure what "at that DNA level" means. I don't think our DNAs are talking to each other, but we are constantly taking in information (signals and cues) and that information affects our morphology and behavior. How we use that information is selected by the success of the responses of our ancestors.
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| Newo |
Posted - 08/18/2005 : 12:08:42
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Develop interest in life as you see it; in people, things, literature, music -- the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself. |
| Newo |
Posted - 08/18/2005 : 11:38:15
I hadn't heard that no. A few of my friends and family are healers and are helping me train with projecting energy from the hands, I haven't been to a hospital in years. Right now I'm looking at a photo taken in Necker Hospital in Paris of the meridian system picked out by a gamma camera after radioactive tracers had been injected into acupuncture points, have you seen this? pathways of photons (chi in acuspeak), like the circuitboard of the body. I can't find a photo on the net yet, there are stories about it here www.emofree.com/Research/meridianexistence.htm if I don't turn up one I'll scan it in.
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Develop interest in life as you see it; in people, things, literature, music -- the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself. |
| apl4eris |
Posted - 08/18/2005 : 11:15:48
Newo, are you familiar with the lab tests on Tai Chi masters and the levels of energy they can focus and project? I don't have a link at the moment, but it was a pretty amazing dicovery.
Think I saw something about it on the Science/Discovery channel (cable channel in the states at least) too. |
| Newo |
Posted - 08/18/2005 : 11:08:49
quote:
starmekitten Posted - 08/18/2005 : 09:04:11
I imagine that if one person in a group undergoes a traumatic experience this will affect the rest of the group as well, not just in terms of picking up stress hormones but at that DNA level
this is why I created the thread in the first place. If you got time can you elaborate on this please?
--
Develop interest in life as you see it; in people, things, literature, music -- the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself. |
| starmekitten |
Posted - 08/18/2005 : 09:04:11
and I think of it as a biological function that could be inherant within the control of our DNA that isn't fully comprehended. The DNA remembers what has happened to it, it remembers way back to what your grandparents were up to, even further back than that. When a plant is invaded by a pathogen is has two types of defence the immediate and the long term response, the first response deals with minimising the damage, the second response in Memory. The plant remembers for a long time afterwards what this pathogenic attack feels like and knows how to respond to it. Not just that plant, but all those nearby know how to deal with it, whether thay have had that particular attack or not. It's all signals and stimuli. I imagine, although I have nothing conclusive to back this up and I refuse to look because I'm too busy, that external stimuli affects the DNA which could trigger off signals and response through epigenetic control that we as an individual have no memory of, but may be a stimuli an ancestor of ours had experience of. The DNA knows how to respond because it's been there before, it reaches us as a sort of memory we may not have and because we can't explain knowing XY or Z because we have never undergone or felt it before it gathers this label of unknown. I doubt any emotion or feeling or understanding we have now is new or unique to us as individuals, there is some part of us that has been there and has done that, so what we think we know isn't all that we do know. I also doubt that experience is limited to the individual line, I imagine that if one person in a group undergoes a traumatic experience this will affect the rest of the group as well, not just in terms of picking up stress hormones but at that DNA level. Signals and response and I am waffling, I swore I wasn't going near this thread again. But thats how I think of it.
You begin saving the world by saving one person at a time; all else is grandiose romanticism or politics |
| Erebus |
Posted - 08/18/2005 : 08:46:21
I think intuition is what we call conscious awareness of something the subconscious brain has worked out neurosynaptically, especially where that awareness involves an apparent leap beyond consciously obvious perceptions and cognitions. One is said to intuit a sense of direction or of a person's character or intent, as though the intuition appears as a miraculously whole to consciousness. I seriously doubt there are any miraculous wholes, but instead merely the tips of mostly submerged icebergs. Outside conscious awareness the brain works until the conscious mind intuits a conclusion which appears whole and mostly or completely formed. As I have said, consciousness is always the last to know. |
| Llamadance |
Posted - 08/18/2005 : 08:31:03
I always felt that intuition was what happens when we subconsciously pick up on external stimuli, process it and then it becomes a conscious thought. Different people may have varying sensitivity to that, or even varying ability to process that information.
It could be that until our civilization evolved the way it has now, or until our population was so massive and relatively crowded, intuition was relatively unimportant. Maybe only now is it being selected for or against in an evolutionary sense.
I'm just guessing though ;)
As for ants, I think it's all controlled by pheromones.
No power in the 'verse can stop me
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| Newo |
Posted - 08/18/2005 : 05:50:51
I did read it but didn't make out why it could explain intuition.
--
Develop interest in life as you see it; in people, things, literature, music -- the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself. |
| starmekitten |
Posted - 08/18/2005 : 05:33:30
Epigenetics: Genome, Meet Your Environment
As the evidence accumulates for epigenetics, researchers reacquire a taste for Lamarckism | By Leslie A. Pray
Toward the end of World War II, a German-imposed food embargo in western Holland--a densely populated area already suffering from scarce food supplies, ruined agricultural lands, and the onset of an unusually harsh winter--led to the death by starvation of some 30,000 people. Detailed birth records collected during that so-called Dutch Hunger Winter have provided scientists with useful data for analyzing the long-term health effects of prenatal exposure to famine. Not only have researchers linked such exposure to a range of developmental and adult disorders, including low birth weight, diabetes, obesity, coronary heart disease, breast and other cancers, but at least one group has also associated exposure with the birth of smaller-than-normal grandchildren.(1) The finding is remarkable because it suggests that a pregnant mother's diet can affect her health in such a way that not only her children but her grandchildren (and possibly great-grandchildren, etc.) inherit the same health problems.
In another study, unrelated to the Hunger Winter, researchers correlated grandparents' prepubertal access to food with diabetes and heart disease.(2) In other words, you are what your grandmother ate. But, wait, wouldn't that imply what every good biologist knows is practically scientific heresy: the Lamarckian inheritance of acquired characteristics?
If agouti mice are any indication, the answer could be yes. The multicolored rodents make for a fascinating epigenetics story, which Randy Jirtle and Robert Waterland of Duke University told last summer in a Molecular and Cell Biology paper; many of the scientists interviewed for this article still laud and refer to that paper as one of the most exciting recent findings in the field. The Duke researchers showed that diet can dramatically alter heritable phenotypic change in agouti mice, not by changing DNA sequence but by changing the DNA methylation pattern of the mouse genome.(3) "This is going to be just massive," Jirtle says, "because this is where environment interfaces with genomics."
EPIGENETICS EXPLAINED This type of inheritance, the transmission of non-DNA sequence information through either meiosis or mitosis, is known as epigenetic inheritance. From the Greek prefix epi, which means "on" or "over", epigenetic information modulates gene expression without modifying actual DNA sequence. DNA methylation patterns are the longest-studied and best-understood epigenetic markers, although ethyl, acetyl, phosphoryl, and other modifications of histones, the protein spools around which DNA winds, are another important source of epigenetic regulation. The latter presumably influence gene expression by changing chromatin structure, making it either easier or more difficult for genes to be activated.
Because a genome can pick up or shed a methyl group much more readily than it can change its DNA sequence, Jirtle says epigenetic inheritance provides a "rapid mechanism by which [an organism] can respond to the environment without having to change its hardware." Epigenetic patterns are so sensitive to environmental change that, in the case of the agouti mice, they can dramatically and heritably alter a phenotype in a single generation. If you liken the genome to the hardware of a computer, Jirtle explains, then "epigenetics is the software. It's the grey area. It's just so darn beautiful if you think about it."
The environmental lability of epigenetic inheritance may not necessarily bring to mind Lamarckian images of giraffes stretching their necks to reach the treetops (and then giving birth to progeny with similarly stretched necks), but it does give researchers reason to reconsider long-refuted notions about the inheritance of acquired characteristics. Eighteenth-century French naturalist Jean Baptiste de Lamarck proposed that environmental cues could cause phenotypic changes transmittable to offspring. "He had a basically good idea but a bad example," says Rohl Oflsson, Uppsala University, Sweden.
LAMARCK: Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829) is best remembered for a discredited theory of heredity, the "inheritance of acquired traits." He proposed that environment changes caused changes in behavior which in turn led to the increase or decrease of particular structures. Lamarck had a colorful and distinguished career: in turns soldier, bank clerk, Professor of "insects and worms" he died a poor man and was buried in a rented grave.
Although the field of epigenetics as it is known today (that is, the study of heritable changes in gene expression and regulation that have little to do with DNA sequence) has been around for only 20 years or so, the term epigenetics has been in use since at least the early 1940s. Developmental biologist Conrad Waddington used it back then to refer to the study of processes by which genotypes give rise to phenotypes (in contrast to genetics, the study of genotypes). Some reports indicate that the term is even older than Waddington, dating back to the late 1800s. Either way, early use of the term was in reference to developmental phenomena.
In 2001, Joshua Lederberg proposed the use of more semantically, or historically, correct language.(4) But it appears that today's use of the term is here to stay, at least for now, as are its derivatives: epiallele (genes with different degrees of methylation), epigenome (the genome-wide pattern of methyl and other epigenetic markers), epigenetic therapy (drugs that target epigenetic markers), and even epigender (the sexual identity of a genome based on its imprinting pattern).
Terminology aside, biologists have long entertained the notion that certain types of cellular information can be transmitted from one generation to the next, even as DNA sequences stay the same. Bruce Stillman, director of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL), NY, traces much of today's research in epigenetics back to Barbara McClintock's discovery of transposons in maize. Methyl-rich transposable elements, which constitute over 35% of the human genome, are considered a classical model for epigenetic inheritance. Indeed, the epigenetic lability of Jirtle's agouti mice is due to the presence of a transposon at the 5' end of the agouti gene. But only over the past two decades has the evidence become strong enough to convince and attract large numbers of epigenetics researchers. "[Epigenetics] has very deep roots in biology," says Stillman," but the last few years have been just an explosion in understanding."
METHYLATION AND MORE One of the prominent features of DNA methylation is the faithful propagation of its genomic pattern from one cellular or organismal generation to the next. When a methylated DNA sequence replicates, only one strand of the next-generation double helix has all its methyl markers intact; the other strand needs to be remethylated. According to Massachusetts Institute of Technology biologist Rudy Jaenisch, the field of epigenetics took its first major step forward more than two decades ago when, upon discovering DNA methyltransferases (DMTs, the enzymes that bind methyl groups to cytosine nucleotides), researchers finally had a genetic handle on how epigenetic information was passed along. Now, it is generally believed that DMTs bind methyl groups to the naked cytosines based on the methylation template provided by the other strand. This is known as the maintenance methylase theory.
But even a decade ago, says Wolf Reik of the Babraham Institute, Cambridge, UK, "a lot of epigenetics was phenomenology, and so people looked at it and said, well, this is all very interesting, but what's the molecular mechanism?" Reik points to recent evidence suggesting a critical link between the two main types of epigenetic regulation, DNA methylation and histone modification, as one of the most interesting recent developments in the field. Because of that link, researcher Eric Selker and colleagues at the University of Oregon, Portland, have proposed that there may be more to methylation propagation than maintenance, despite 25 years of evidence. In 2001, Selker and coauthor Hisashi Tamaru showed that dim-5, a gene that encodes a histone H3 Lys-9 methyltransferase, is required for DNA methylation in the filamentous fungus, Neurospora crassa.(5) The histone enzyme is, in turn, influenced by modifications of histone H3. So even though DNA methylation is guided by a DNA methyltransferase encoded by dim-2, it still takes orders from the chromatin.
In a study by CSHL researchers Robert Martienssen, Shiv Grewal, and colleagues, evidence suggests that histone modifications are, in turn, guided by RNA interference (RNAi).(6) Using the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe, the researchers deleted genes that encode RNAi molecular machinery and observed a loss of histone H3 lys-9 methylation and impaired centromere function. "This new understanding has created a lot of excitement," says Stillman.
EPIGENETICS AND DISEASE More than two decades ago, anyone who proposed that epigenetic regulation played a role in carcinogenesis was a "lone prophet in the desert," explains Jaenisch. Researchers didn't seriously entertain the notion until Andy Feinberg and Bert Vogelstein, both at Johns Hopkins University, reported a link between human cancer cells and aberrant DNA methylation patterns.7 Even then, Feinberg says "the initial reaction was disbelief. I think that people ignored it. Now, everyone accepts that epigenetics is important in cancer." The etiological link between epigenetic change and cancer has fueled both academic and pharmaceutical interest in the field.
Methylation usually silences gene expression. Normally, about 70% of all CpG dinucleotides in the mammalian genome are methylated. The remainder, clusters near the 5' end of genes known as CpG islands, are protected from it. Too little methylation across the genome or too much methylation in the CpG islands can cause problems, the former by activating nearby oncogenes, and the latter by silencing tumor suppressor genes. When Feinberg and Vogelstein linked cancer to epigenetics in the early 1980s, they linked it specifically to genome-wide hypomethylation. A few years later, German and US research teams discovered connections between cancer and tumor- suppressing silencing caused by hypermethylation. Both hypo- and hypermethylation can play significant regulatory roles even in the same tumor.
© 2003 American Society for Microbiology
SAME GENOME, DIFFERENT EPIGENOME: Variability in CpG methylation at the agouti locus causes differences in coat color among genetically identical mice. Maternal nutrition affects the phenotype of offspring by influencing the degree of CpG methylation at the agouti locus. (Reprinted with permission, Molec Cell Biol, Aug 2003)
It has taken more than correlations between methylation and cancer, however, to convince researchers that epigenetics is the cause, not consequence, of malignancy. Feinberg points to two pieces of evidence that have pushed epigenetics to the fore. First, several independent observations of epigenetic aberrations (specifically, impaired methylation patterns) in normal cells surrounding tumorous tissue suggest that epigenetic abnormalities are not simply an epiphenomenon of the cancer phenotype, as has been argued. But the real "smoking gun for epigenetics," says Feinberg, has been the detection of a clear causal link between Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome (BWS) and a particular cluster of imprinted genes, which include the insulin-like growth factor II gene, Igf2.
Imprinting is the differential methyl tagging and expression of genes depending on whether they came from the mother or father. Igf2 is one of the best characterized imprinted genes: It is turned off on the maternal chromosome (i.e., it is silenced by methylation) so that only its paternal copy is expressed. But in the case of BWS, a rare birth defect, Igf2 is biallelically expressed. It has been suggested that the double dosage of Igf2 does its damage by inhibiting apoptosis. Babies born with BWS are more likely to develop macroglossia (enlarged tongue), abdominal wall defects, and various types of malignant tumors.
The etiological role of epigenetics in tumor formation has prompted efforts to create antitumor drugs that correct disrupted epigenetic inheritance. So far, says Jaenisch, no one has succeeded, although the Food and Drug Administration approved the epigenetic inhibitor azacitidine on May 19, for the treatment of the bone disorder myelodysplastic syndrome. The drug reportedly turns on genes that have been silenced by epigenetic methylation.
Epigenetic inheritance has been associated with a number of other human health conditions, including some whose incidence is higher among babies born with the aid of assisted reproduction technology (ART). As Reik explains, embryos normally develop in a protective environment, the womb. When they are put into the suboptimal environment of a culture dish, many things can go wrong. Methylation sites initially established in the oocyte may not be maintained properly, and imprinting patterns may be lost during development. Individuals conceived by ART techniques have a higher risk of being born with BWS, Angelman syndrome (AS), and retinoblastoma (a tumor of the retina). Like BWS, AS has been linked to imprinting errors. Typical features of babies born with AS include developmental delay, absent speech development, and seizures.
Epigenetic inheritance also may be the reason that human cloning is all but impossible. Indeed, Jaenisch considers cloning "the ultimate bioassay for epigenetic changes." When a differentiated somatic cell is put into an oocyte, its genome-wide epigenetic pattern must be reprogrammed in order to restore totipotency. The difficulties associated with reprogramming all the chromatin, histones, and methylation patterns along the entire length of the DNA sequence may explain why so many cloned embryos have so many developmental failures.
LAMARCKISM REVISITED Normally, the fur of agouti mice is yellow, brown, or a calico-like mixture of the two, depending on the number of attached methyl groups. But when Duke University researchers Jirtle and Waterland fed folic acid and other methyl-rich supplements to pregnant mothers, despite the fact that all offspring inherited exactly the same agouti gene (i.e., with no nucleotide differences), mice who received supplements had offspring with mostly brown fur, whereas mice without supplements gave birth to mostly yellow pups with a higher susceptibility to obesity, diabetes, and cancer. The methyl groups bound to a transposon at the 5' end of the agouti locus, thereby shutting off expression of the agouti gene, not just in the murine recipient but in its offspring as well.
Although the study demonstrates that, at least in mice, folic acid supplementation in pregnant mothers reduces the risk of their babies having certain health problems, Jirtle warns that the results cannot be extrapolated to humans. "Mice are not men," he emphasizes. But he doesn't downplay the proof of principle. The take-home message is not that folic acid supplements are a good thing. Rather, environmental factors such as nutritional supplementation can have a dramatic impact on inheritance, not by changing the DNA sequence of a gene or via single-nucleotide polymorphism, but by changing the methylation pattern of that gene. "It's a proof of concept," says Donata Vercelli, University of Arizona, Tucson. "That's why it's so important."
According to Vercelli, the environmental susceptibility of epigenetics probably explains why genetically identical organisms such as twins can have dramatically different phenotypes in different environments. She points to the agouti mice, as well as another recent cluster of studies on a heat shock protein, Hsp90, in Drosophila melanogaster, as "model systems that have very eloquently demonstrated" the critically important role that epigenetic inheritance plays in this kind of gene-by-environment interaction.
Hsp90 regulates developmental genes during times of stress by releasing previously hidden or buffered phenotypic variation. Douglas Ruden of the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, says he noticed some weird fruit fly phenotypes--things like appendage-like organs sticking out of their eyes--at about the same time that a paper appeared in Nature connecting Hsp90 activity in Drosophila to genetic variation.(8) In that paper, Suzanne Rutherford and Susan Lindquist, then at the University of Chicago, presented compelling evidence that Hsp90 serves as an "evolutionary capacitor," a genetic factor that regulates phenotypic expression by unleashing "hidden" variation in stressful conditions.8 Even after restoring normal Hsp90 activity, the new phenotypes responded to ten or more generations of selection. The scientists concluded that, once released, even after normal Hsp90 activity was restored, the previously buffered variation persisted in a heritable manner, generation after generation.
When the Lindquist paper came out, Ruden says he thought, "Ah, I'm probably seeing the same thing." He was doing some crosses, "and I started to see this weird phenotype." But Ruden and collaborators concluded that their strange eye phenotype was due to something other than, or in addition to, the sudden unleashing of hidden genetic variation.(9) Indeed, the researchers used a strain of flies that had little genetic variation, and yet was still capable of responding to 13 generations of selection even after normal Hsp90 activity was restored. Because of the genomic homogeneity of their flies, combined with observations that mutations encoding chromatin-remodeling proteins induced the same abnormal eye phenotype, the investigators concluded that reduced levels of Hsp90 affected the phenotype by epigenetically altering the chromatin.
Although it is hard to imagine that an appendage-like structure sticking out of the eye would be adaptive in times of stress, Vercelli says that epigenetic change clearly can be environmentally induced in a heritable manner, in this case by alterations to Hsp90. The morphological variations in the eye were probably only the most obvious of many phenotypic differences caused by the chromatin changes.
In a written commentary, evolutionary biologist Massimo Pigliucci said that Ruden's experiment was "one of the most convincing pieces of evidence that epigenetic variation is far from being a curious nuisance to evolutionary biologists."(10) Pigluicci doesn't go so far as to say that the heritable changes caused by Hsp90 alterations are Lamarckian, but Ruden does. "Epigenetics has always been Lamarckian. I really don't think there's any controversy," he says.
Not that Mendelian genetics is wrong; far from it. The increased understanding of epigenetic change and the recent evidence indicating its role in inheritance and development doesn't give epigenetics greater importance than DNA. Genetics and epigenetics go "hand in hand," says Ohlsson. In the case of disease, says Reik, "there are clearly genetic factors involved, but there are also other factors involved. My suspicion is that it will be a combination of genetic and epigenetic factors, as well as environmental factors, that determine all these diseases."
Leslie Pray (lpray@nasw.org) is a freelance writer in Holyoke, Mass.
References
1. L.H. Lumey, "Decreased birthweights in infants after maternal in utero exposure to the Dutch famine of 1944-1945," Paediatr Perinat Ep, 6:240-53, 1992.
2. G. Kaati et al., "Cardiovascular and diabetes mortality determined by nutrition during parents' and grandparents' slow growth period," Eur J Hum Genet, 10:682-8, 2002.
3. R.A. Waterland, R.A. Jirtle, "Transposable elements: targets for early nutritional effects on epigenetic gene regulation," Mol Cell Biol, 23:5293-300, 2003.
4. J. Lederberg, "The meaning of epigenetics," The Scientist, 15[18]:6, Sept. 17, 2001.
5. H. Tamaru, E.U. Selker, "A histone H3 methyltransferase controls DNA methylation in Neurospora crassa," Nature, 414:277-83, 2001.
6. T.A. Volpe et al., "Regulation of heterochromatic silencing and histone H3 lysine-9 methylation by RNAi," Science, 297:1833-7, 2002.
7. A.P. Feinberg, B. Vogelstein, "Hypomethylation distinguishes genes of some human cancers from their normal counterparts," Nature, 301:89-92, 1983.
8. S.L. Rutherford, S. Lindquist, "Hsp90 as a capacitor for morphological evolution," Nature, 396:336-42, 1998.
9. V. Sollars et al., "Evidence for an epigenetic mechanism by which Hsp90 acts as a capacitor for morphological evolution," Nat Genet, 33:70-4, 2003.
10. M. Pigliucci, "Epigenetics is back!" Cell Cycle, 2:34-5, 2003.
You begin saving the world by saving one person at a time; all else is grandiose romanticism or politics |
| starmekitten |
Posted - 08/18/2005 : 05:19:46
New York Times
October 7, 2003
A Pregnant Mother's Diet May Turn the Genes Around
By Sandra Blakeslee
With the help of some fat yellow mice, scientists have discovered exactly how a mother's diet can permanently alter the functioning of genes in her offspring without changing the genes themselves.
The unusual strain of mouse carries a kind of trigger near the gene that determines not only the color of its coat but also its predisposition to obesity, diabetes and cancer. When pregnant mice were fed extra vitamins and supplements, the supplements interacted with the trigger in the fetal mice and shut down the gene. As a result, obese yellow mothers gave birth to standard brown baby mice that grew up lean and healthy.
Scientists have long known that what pregnant mothers eat -- whether they are mice, fruit flies or humans -- can profoundly affect the susceptibility of their offspring to disease. But until now they have not understood why, said Dr. Randy Jirtle, a professor of radiation oncology at Duke and senior investigator of the study, which was reported in the Aug. 1 issue of Molecular and Cellular Biology.
The research is a milestone in the relatively new science of epigenetics, the study of how environmental factors like diet, stress and maternal nutrition can change gene function without altering the DNA sequence in any way.
Such factors have been shown to play a role in cancer, stroke, diabetes, schizophrenia, manic depression and other diseases as well as in shaping behavioral traits in offspring.
Most geneticists are focusing on sequences of genes in trying to understand which gene goes with which illness or behavior, said Dr. Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health. "But these epigenetic effects could turn out to be much more important. The field is revolutionary," he said, "and humbling."
Epigenetics may indeed hold answers to many mysteries that classical genetic approaches have been unable to solve, said Dr. Arturas Petronis, an associate professor of psychiatry at the Center for Addiction and Mental Health at the University of Toronto.
For example, why does one identical twin develop schizophrenia and not the other? Why do certain disease genes seem to affect or "penetrate" some people more than others? Why do complex diseases like autism turn up in more boys than girls?
For answers, epigeneticists are looking at biological mechanisms other than mutation that affect how genes function. One, called methylation, acts like a gas pedal or brake. It can turn gene expression up or down, on or off, depending on how much of it is around and what part of the genetic machinery it affects.
During methylation, a quartet of atoms called a methyl group attaches to a gene at a specific point and induces changes in the way the gene is expressed.
The process often inactivates genes not needed by a cell. The genes on one of the two X chromosomes in each female cell are silenced by methylation.
Methyl groups and other small molecules may sometimes attach to certain spots on chromosomes, helping to relax tightly coiled strands of DNA so that genes can be expressed.
Sometimes the coils are made tighter so that active genes are inactivated.
Methyl groups also inactivate remnants of past viral infections, called transposons. Forty percent of the human genome is made up of parasitic transposons.
Finally, methyl groups play a critical role in controlling genes involved in prenatal and postnatal development, including some 80 genes inherited from only one parent. Because these so-called imprinted genes must be methylated to function, they are vulnerable to diet and other environmental factors.
When a sperm and egg meet to form an embryo, each has a different pattern of methylated genes. The patterns are not passed on as genes are, but in a chemical battle of the sexes some of the egg and sperm patterns do seem to be inherited. In general, the egg seems to have the upper hand.
"We're compounds, mosaics of epigenetic patterns and gene sequences," said Dr. Arthur Beaudet, chairman of the molecular and human genetics department at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. While DNA sequences are commonly compared to a text of written letters, he said, epigenetics is like the formatting in a word processing program.
Though the primary letters do not vary, the font can be large or small, Times Roman or Arial, italicized, bold, upper case, lower case, underlined or shadowed. They can be any color of the rainbow.
Methylation is nature's way of allowing environmental factors to tweak gene expression without making permanent mutations, Dr. Jirtle said.
Fleeting exposure to anything that influences methylation patterns during development can change the animal or person for a lifetime. Methyl groups are entirely derived from the foods people eat. And the effect may be good or bad. Maternal diet during pregnancy is consequently very important, but in ways that are not yet fully understood.
For his experiment, Dr. Jirtle chose a mouse that happens to have a transposon right next to the gene that codes for coat color. The transposon induces the gene to overproduce a protein that turns the mice pure yellow or mottled yellow and brown. The protein also blocks a feeding control center in the brain. Yellow mice therefore overeat and tend to develop diabetes and cancer.
To see if extra methylation would affect the mice, the researchers fed the animals a rich supply of methyl groups in supplements of vitamin B12, folic acid, choline and betaine from sugar beets just before they got pregnant and through the time of weaning their pups. The methyl groups silenced the transposon, Dr. Jirtle said, which in turn affected the adjacent coat color gene. The babies, born a normal brownish color, had an inherited predisposition to obesity, diabetes and cancer negated by maternal diet.
Unfortunately the scientists do not know which nutrient or combination of nutrients silence the genes, but noted that it did not take much. The animals were fed only three times as much of the supplements as found in a normal diet.
"If you looked at the mouse as a black box, you could say that adding these methyl-rich supplements to our diets might reduce our risk of obesity and cancer," Dr. Jirtle said. But, he added, there is strong reason for caution.
The positions of transposons in the human genome are completely different from the mouse pattern. Good maps of transposons in the human genome need to be made, he said. For that reason, it may be time to reassess the way the American diet is fortified with supplements, said Dr. Rob Waterland, a research fellow in Dr. Jirtle's lab and an expert on nutrition and epigenetics.
More than a decade ago, for example, epidemiological studies showed that some women who ate diets low in folic acid ran a higher risk of having babies with abnormalities in the spinal cord and brain, called neural tube defects.
To reduce this risk, folic acid was added to grains eaten by all Americans, and the incidence of neural tube defects fell substantially. But while there is no evidence that extra folic acid is harmful to the millions of people who eat fortified grains regularly, Dr. Waterland said, there is also no evidence that it is innocuous.
The worry is that excess folic acid may play a role in disorders like obesity or autism, which are on the rise, he said. Researchers are just beginning to study the question.
Epidemiological evidence shows that undernutrition and overnutrition in critical stages of development can lead to health problems in second and third generations, Dr. Waterland said.
A Dutch famine near the end of World War II led to an increased incidence of schizophrenia in adults who had been food-deprived during the first trimester of their mothers' pregnancy. Malnourishment among pregnant women in the South during the Civil War and the Depression has been proposed as an explanation for the high incidence of stroke among subsequent generations.
And the modern American diet, so full of fats and sugars, could be exerting epigenetic effects on future generations, positive or negative. Abnormal methylation patterns are a hallmark of most cancers, including colon, lung, prostate and breast cancer, said Dr. Peter Laird, an associate professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at the University of Southern California School of Medicine.
The anticancer properties attributed to many foods can be linked to nutrients, he said, as well as to the distinct methylation patterns of people who eat those foods. A number of drugs that inhibit methylation are now being tested as cancer treatments. Psychiatrists are also getting interested in the role of epigenetic factors in diseases like schizophrenia, Dr. Petronis said.
Methylation that occurs after birth may also shape such behavioral traits as fearfulness and confidence, said Dr. Michael Meaney, a professor of medicine and the director of the program for the study of behavior, genes and environment at McGill University in Montreal.
For reasons that are not well understood, methylation patterns are absent from very specific regions of the rat genome before birth. Twelve hours after rats are born, a new methylation pattern is formed. The mother rat then starts licking her pups. The first week is a critical period, Dr. Meaney said. Pups that are licked show decreased methylation patterns in an area of the brain that helps them handle stress. Faced with challenges later in life, they tend to be more confident and less fearful.
"We think licking affects a methylation enzyme that is ready and waiting for mother to start licking," Dr. Meaney said. In perilous times, mothers may be able to set the stress reactivity of their offspring by licking less. When there are fewer dangers around, the mothers may lick more.
Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company
You begin saving the world by saving one person at a time; all else is grandiose romanticism or politics |
| starmekitten |
Posted - 08/18/2005 : 05:03:28
Did you even read my other post? you know, I don't mind talking about these things but I object to wasting my time. 90% of silent DNA nobody has looked into, my eye! I've been talking about silent DNA, I've touched upon epigenetics which is as a result of DNA memory which could explain your intuition and I feel like I am talking to a brick wall sometimes. I'm sorry I haven't intellectualised it but I am trying to make it understandable.
I actually even went looking for photobionics papers yesterday and found things in polymer science journals whereby they are making nanoparticles with biological probes and targetting them to DNA or faulty proteins and stimulating them using UV light, I was going to try and grass roots it but I feel like it's a pointless exercise because it seems to be not what you people want to hear. I'm not wasting my time going over concepts people are going to ignore.
You begin saving the world by saving one person at a time; all else is grandiose romanticism or politics |
| Newo |
Posted - 08/18/2005 : 04:45:15
quote:
starmekitten
~ Abstract Brain ~
4296 Posts
Posted - 08/17/2005 : 15:30:42 Show Profile Reply with Quote
Oh Owen. Really?
Yep, sorry Tre. When it comes to explaining intuition, official science has kind of shit the bed.
Apl, that book looks fascinating, its been on my list for ages now. I kept finding references to it in papers on Don DeLillo.
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Develop interest in life as you see it; in people, things, literature, music -- the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself. |
| Daisy Girl |
Posted - 08/17/2005 : 16:59:22
this is a great thread... i've been lurking keep it up! thank you smart FB.netter for starting this thread :)
"I ain't goin to be what I ain't" |
| apl4eris |
Posted - 08/17/2005 : 16:41:57
Newo, that was a very interesting read. I'm intrigued, but I definitely would like to read the science behind the translated summary. I have a feeling that, if there is real science being referenced, the point gets lost in the muck of a lazily-written summation, and all those funny German grammatical oddities. I love the topic though.
Have you read "Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid"?
If not, I think it's probably right up your alley. It was wriiten by Douglas R. Hofstadter. It's taking me forever to get through, but it may be my favorite book. |
| starmekitten |
Posted - 08/17/2005 : 15:30:42
Oh Owen. Really?
You begin saving the world by saving one person at a time; all else is grandiose romanticism or politics |
| Newo |
Posted - 08/17/2005 : 14:50:50
quote:
I could live a life of misery and hate and my proteins would still be made in the same way they always were.
How much of DNA is concerned with building protein though? I'm talking about the other 90%.
When I mentioned 'communication' I meant to say 'hypercommunication' which is a jazzedup way of saying 'intuition' - I know DNA's intra/extracellular communicative quality is nothing new, but what interested me was the notion of the 90% barely anybody looks at as a way to explain something like say as soon as a queen ant dies, even if separated from her nest, all the workerants stop building the nest. Or when I think something and somebody else says it an instant later. Perhaps it's overromantic to want to explain intuition and all the things we discover we know that we'd previously thought were outside the sum of our knowledge. These days we like to romanticise ourselves as being hardheadedly empirical and rational and we create mountains of laws about the 5% - if even that - of the mass in the universe that's within our visual frequency. I don't hold onto any idea so tight that if a better one came along I'd trash it, just given that DNA is a wonderful broadcaster/receiver within the body, I'm very interested in finding out if it can explain some of the countless subtle ways we interact with our environment.
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Develop interest in life as you see it; in people, things, literature, music -- the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself. |
| TRANSMARINE |
Posted - 08/17/2005 : 13:25:59
[quote]Originally posted by Newo
These are good with nacho cheese.
I was alone...in my BIG BED
-bRIAN |
| Llamadance |
Posted - 08/17/2005 : 11:45:56
Damn you Erebus :D
No power in the 'verse can stop me
|
| Llamadance |
Posted - 08/17/2005 : 11:45:16
quote:
Beliefs, thats a product of learning maybe. I don't know. Like, OK example, I was talking to a girl on my course and she was telling me about her parents, one parent is hindu the other catholic, so I asked her about her beliefs and she talked about it at length and that was very nice. Then she asked me about mine and being a bit on the PMS side of things I may have burst into tears. She felt very sorry for me in these terms because she couldn't imagine what it must be like not believing in any God, wheras on the flipside I can't imagine what it's like to believe. I made some flippant remark at the time about how my Faith gene must be switched off, and it wouldn't matter what I did I wouldn't be able to switch it on ever. I've been wondering since then if that had a ring of truth to it, I mean I know there's no such gene but if some part of my ancestral history determined that I wouldn't be able to do that, through a function of epigenetic control. Thats wacky thinking for a science broad, but I don't often try to mix soul and science together, it does get wacky when you do that.
There is quite a good article on religion and the make up of the brain here http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2003/godonbrain.shtml
where it discusses that some people may have a greater capacity or 'talent' for religion due to their brain. I guess that could fit in with some epigenetic scenario, but certainly goes along with a 'faith' gene.
I'd read before that people with larger temporal lobes tend to be more likely to 'get' religion, and this discussion reminded me of it.
No power in the 'verse can stop me
|
| Erebus |
Posted - 08/17/2005 : 11:41:00
quote:
Originally posted by starmekitten
quote:
To what extent do you feel, if at all, beliefs, words and emotions change our genetic makeup?
... I would never say like erebus has, that we are already determined into what we are by our genetic make up in terms of decision and destiny and other such things. But then I would never say we are objects of free will either because so much of our character is determined.
....I made some flippant remark at the time about how my Faith gene must be switched off, and it wouldn't matter what I did I wouldn't be able to switch it on ever. I've been wondering since then if that had a ring of truth to it, I mean I know there's no such gene but if....
... If you look at the hormonal composition of a depressive and a person in love thats enough to say how emotion affects a person I think, but the capability to both lies dormant in the DNA until the time is appropriate.
Since my name was mentioned, I did want to remind that while many simpler phenotypes do seem hardwired, I certainly regard most behavioral dispositions to be the result of subtle interactions of genes and environment, with both being meant in the broadest possible senses, as in the last clause quoted above.
Regarding "faith genes", there has been increased interest in what has been termed neurotheology, to include thusfar inconclusive monitoring of activity within certain specific areas of the brain. Of course, development of any such activity would arise through more than "one gene", and quite likely would arise only via interaction of genetic proclivities with possible influences. I believe that research will eventually reveal that faith does arise in part through a brain structure with that capability, most likely among many somewhat similar capabilities. People rarely remember that the totality of their understanding of existence at all times resides within their cranium. And so it is that "heaven is in your mind". |
| kathryn |
Posted - 08/17/2005 : 11:09:56
Sometimes, no matter how shitty things get, you have to just do a little dance. - Frank
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| starmekitten |
Posted - 08/17/2005 : 11:04:45
quote:
To what extent do you feel, if at all, beliefs, words and emotions change our genetic makeup?
Interesting. Something I find hard sometimes it tying the romantic flowers and fluff half of my soul with the sensible how the world works half. I would never say like erebus has, that we are already determined into what we are by our genetic make up in terms of decision and destiny and other such things. But then I would never say we are objects of free will either because so much of our character is determined. This often causes a struggle in me as to where I lean. And, as ever, I'm happy in the middle watching the two halves battle it out.
Anyway, our genetic make up in terms of DNA is unaffected by those things. I could live a life of misery and hate and my proteins would still be made in the same way they always were. In terms of how my DNA regulated itself, it may be that that would affect not only me but my (poor poor) progeny and this could be determinable by those epigenetic factors. Emotions will affect a system, because, well, they do!
Beliefs, thats a product of learning maybe. I don't know. Like, OK example, I was talking to a girl on my course and she was telling me about her parents, one parent is hindu the other catholic, so I asked her about her beliefs and she talked about it at length and that was very nice. Then she asked me about mine and being a bit on the PMS side of things I may have burst into tears. She felt very sorry for me in these terms because she couldn't imagine what it must be like not believing in any God, wheras on the flipside I can't imagine what it's like to believe. I made some flippant remark at the time about how my Faith gene must be switched off, and it wouldn't matter what I did I wouldn't be able to switch it on ever. I've been wondering since then if that had a ring of truth to it, I mean I know there's no such gene but if some part of my ancestral history determined that I wouldn't be able to do that, through a function of epigenetic control. Thats wacky thinking for a science broad, but I don't often try to mix soul and science together, it does get wacky when you do that.
As for words, I don't think they have any affect, it's the emotion behind the words that affects you biologically. Words are empty it's the sentiment thats important. If you look at the hormonal composition of a depressive and a person in love thats enough to say how emotion affects a person I think, but the capability to both lies dormant in the DNA until the time is appropriate.
Fucking hell. I've weirded me out.
You begin saving the world by saving one person at a time; all else is grandiose romanticism or politics |
| starmekitten |
Posted - 08/17/2005 : 10:35:50
But thats a random occurance, exposure to any radiating force could cause an alteration how can you direct the alteration at the DNA level? There's many ways that mobile phone masts and microwaves could alter DNA. How can I put this, if you took 100 people and made them live under a mobile phone mast for a year, 40% of that population could go on to develop cancer and 60% could not, they've all been exposed to the radiation but the results are not uniform because mutation is a random process. Of those 40% that went on to develop cancers they would not all be the same cancer. Each would probably be different in the way it is initiated at the DNA level, it would develop in an individual way. Thats a hypothetical situation but do you get my point?
There is no way you could direct a laser at tissue and a piece of DNA and say it's going to mend, I don't know sickle cell by switching the one nucleotide which results in that one amino acid on the beta chain of haemoglobin being swapped for a valine and makes the haemoglobin link into sickles. It would have to be that specific, it's a ridiculous concept.
I'm not saying that DNA is unaffected by it's environment, but how it is affected is not predictable in this instance.
You begin saving the world by saving one person at a time; all else is grandiose romanticism or politics |
| Newo |
Posted - 08/17/2005 : 10:22:25
Also, DNAaltering is nothing new for the agenda either. The Journal of Cellular Biochemistry reported that heavy cellphone use could cause brain cancer and other diseases by messing with DNA repair of wayward cells, and epidemiologist Dr George Carlo conducted a 6year study concluding that wireless phone radiation caused DNA damage (you will have to work off your own bat researching this, look how long it took the establishment to acknowledge cigarettes were harmful). Britain has something like 40,000 mobilephone masts (!), and the head of Lund Uni, Leif Salford said the exposure of the brain to mobilephone microwaves is the largest human biological experiment ever.
--
Develop interest in life as you see it; in people, things, literature, music -- the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself. |
| Newo |
Posted - 08/17/2005 : 10:12:06
It's weirdly worded because it's written by someone for whom English is a second language. The writers have a book called Vernetzte Intelligenz (Networked Intelligence), as yet it is only in German but here's the ISBN should you want to keep a tab on it: 3930243237. The brash declarations of proof raised a redflag with me too, but I want to read the book first.
I came upon it after reading the work of a guy at the IHM in Tokyo, Masaru Emoto. See while I slept, doodled or looked out the window through pretty much all of state education I've been interested a long time in the effects of consciousness, thoughts and emotions on our bodies and viceversa. So this Emoto fella http://www.masaru-emoto.net/english/eprofile.html exposed water to various words and emotions then froze it and photographed the crystals. Here's a couple.
Love and appreciation:
You Make Me Sick I Will Kill You:
His book is called Messages From Water. Human body being 72.8% water I got the feeling I wanted to know if DNA hustles to reorganise itself with such stimuli too. (later I found out it was called psychoneuroimmunology) To what extent do you feel, if at all, beliefs, words and emotions change our genetic makeup?
--
Develop interest in life as you see it; in people, things, literature, music -- the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself. |
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