I wonder if that was the underlying reason I saw a tornado from my great grandmother's property, in a dream.

Never met the woman, and only visited the property once.

That is very interesting! Very significant it seems. It seems that the training increased the expression of that odor receptor by an altered methylation pattern of the bases.. I was wondering about the mechanism. This summary provides just a little more of an in-depth explanation for any one interested:
http://www.medicalnewsto....com/articles/269607.php

P.s. This also jives well with Narby's Cosmic Serpent idea.

I've been a long believer that DNA's primary function is memory, giving the receiver it's list of trial and error ticks and crosses.

Much prefer it to the random mutations idea.

Generations down the line, the message may even get loud enough that we all, each and everyone of us, stops picking it's nose until it bleeds.

Magic.

i wonder if this might explain how the heck butterflies know where to go when they migrate.


also, assassin's creed was right all along

Felnik

Such an interesting and thought provoking article, I would be really keen to see further research and studies which could confirm this incredible phenomenon.


Much Peace and Understanding

Dubious source...

And that last line casts a long shadow of doubt on the rest of the science behind it:

"May our DNA Carrying also spiritual and cosmic memories passed down in genes from our ancestors ?"

Interesting idea though if they did manage to demonstrate it. I'll look for other sources - If it is REAL science, this news should be all over the web.

Cheers,

JBArk


[EDIT] Most credible source I could find, though the BBC are not as thorough as they used to be:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-25156510

If this could be confirmed by other studies in future, perhaps it could bring some light to the Carl's Jung idea of collective unconscious.

@jbark
The nature source seems as legit as they get. Epigenetics is a well observed phenomenon - consider in the very least that the conditions of a womb can have a huge affect on the way a fetus' DNA gets expressed, without being explicitly coded for. According to this study, the DNA sequence itself isn't changed, but the surface of it is altered which affects its expression in subsequent generations.

@shadow
As it stands, DNA codes for human brains that are primed with all kinds of ideas and intuitions by design (language acquisition appears somewhat innate, for instance). The idea of complex archetypes being transmitted across generations wouldn't require the additional mechanism of epigenetics to be plausible. I suppose the existence of epigenetic mechanisms could increase the speed at which such information could develop to be selected for.

I personally suspect that cultural transmission of ideas is easier to explain by the written and spoken word, which can create ideas that conquer societies much faster than genetics or epigenetics. In one generation, an idea can spread to everyone through language. Direct transmission is slower by definition. It is not impossible that the two reinforce each other, of course.

That is a more credible source, thanks. And interesting they underline "before conception".

I am always a little sceptical though when this kind of HUGE science news isn't in the nytimes, the w post, the guardian, the globe and mail, le monde etc..., but just rather on a few fringe sites...

JBArk

Perhaps you just have to be a little patient jbark

fun ramblings

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peRknkX2crk

This story is misleading.

It's epigenetic changes that are being transferred from one generation to the next, not memories.

http://www.technologyrev...or-lamarckian-evolution/

Thank you for this, I have changed the title of this thread accordingly.


Kind regards,

The Traveler

Thats because this was in the newyork times and the other major newspapers 20 years ago when it was new. I remember in highschool, being taught genetics from the text books, and the teacher bringing in a paper 'but look, stuff can be inherited without being "in" DNA!!'
This new paper is just one of the more recent steps in understanding the mechanistics.

Thanks for that! Good to know, even if it puts me back 20 yrs on the knowledge frontier (and most others in this thread also I guess!)

JBArk

Heres the actual study in question if people want to take a look http://www.nature.com/ne...v17/n1/full/nn.3594.html

This isn't really anything new though




Apparently they claim to have found that "During the tests they learned that mice can pass on learned information about traumatic or stressful experiences – in this case a fear of the smell of cherry blossom – to subsequent generations."

I mean sure its all mediated through epigenetics, and it may not be memories in the traditional sense that we think of them, but isn't what your saying a bit too reductionist?

I agree that the OP story is somewhat misleading though, as most news articles on studies tend to be lol

It should also be well-noted that these are animals we're talking about. I know they mention this in the article, but I think the point is a bit understated. Animals are clearly more in touch with instinctive behaviors to begin with. In this case, it's like an instinctual-conditioned response kind of hybrid. Take bees for example. Of course there are many fascinating instinctual behaviors that they undergo from collecting pollen to building the honeycomb, but I think one of the most impressive features of all (and not limited to bees of course) has to do with their birth. When the newborns chew their way out of their honeycomb "incubators" they instantly get to work without a moment to spare on doing exactly what every other bee has been doing their whole life. There's no delay, or hesitation, they just do. Now, for a creature or strata of creatures who are already so in touch with their instinctual side, it seems more plausible for this change to be passed on (even over a short period of time) as compared with humans. I'm not saying it might not be the exact same case for humans, but it should be taken into account that if it does take place in humans, these "inherited responses" might not be as overt and obvious as it is in the case of some of these animal experiments.