[HN Gopher] Fathers' choices may be packaged and passed down in ...
___________________________________________________________________
Fathers' choices may be packaged and passed down in sperm RNA
Author : vismit2000
Score : 286 points
Date : 2025-12-28 01:33 UTC (21 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.quantamagazine.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.quantamagazine.org)
| turtleyacht wrote:
| Curious if in vitro fertilization (IVF) could consider RNA impact
| when evaluating fitness.
|
| Current criteria appear to be motility, morphology, and DNA
| attributes (fragmentation & integrity) [1], all mostly visual or
| physical assessments.
|
| [1] https://vidafertility.com/en/best-sperm-selection/
| zerofor_conduct wrote:
| Lamarck has entered the chat
| echelon wrote:
| I see you being downvoted, but it's a good quip.
|
| Lamarckian vs. Mendelian genetics was about heritable traits
| being acquired in life (Lamarck), or being discrete units
| passed down at conception (Mendel).
|
| Genetics is almost entirely Mendelian, but some of epigenetics
| is durable and thus Lamarckian.
|
| There's also retroviral integrations, transposons, and all
| sorts of other complexities that don't fit neatly into boxes.
| CuriouslyC wrote:
| Not just epigenetics, cells (and probably organisms) have
| mechanisms to induce mutations at elevated rates (e.g. E.
| Coli lacZ mutation under pressure). I wouldn't be surprised
| if nervous systems are elegantly wired to both epigentic and
| mutagenic levers to accelerate evolution through stimulus
| guided modifications rather than just raw survival/selection.
| an-allen wrote:
| Interesting about the epigenetics, transposons, and other DNA
| augmentations...
|
| These are all fundamentally a story of how the individual
| encounters and uses information in their lived experience.
| But there is also a very strong consensus narrative that must
| be respected, but also challenged and evolved. DNA is
| literally the informational substrate of a life... when you
| adopt a personal belief, or are subject to someone elses, you
| have the ability to help but also harm your informational
| substrate. Tend your garden of ideas with love and care.
| ls612 wrote:
| The dirty little secret is that there is an incredible
| ideological incentive for many for Lamarckianism to be true
| so that they can blame "lived experience" for every ill in
| the world. Retroviruses, transposons, etc do not have that
| specific property and thus you see far fewer articles
| extolling their purported impacts.
| DiscourseFan wrote:
| I think its interesting that in the "rationalist" latter half
| of the 20th century Freud began to be dismissed at least in
| part on account of his elective affinity with Lamarck; now, it
| is clear that certain environmental and social factors have an
| influence on offspring at the genomic level from both parents.
| zerofor_conduct wrote:
| Freud was not a scientist, he was a great artist. It is not
| clear whether any of his patients got better after Freud's
| treatment.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| > "It's still very hand-wavy," said the epigeneticist Colin
| Conine (opens a new tab) of the University of Pennsylvania
| Perelman School of Medicine and Children's Hospital of
| Philadelphia
|
| okay, I trust this article and source more
|
| where can I keep up with this in more mainstream but technical
| publications
| biophysboy wrote:
| I would recommend keeping tabs on authors rather than
| periodically checking specific publications.
| flexagoon wrote:
| > okay, I trust this article and source more
|
| Quanta Magazine is great! They have a cool YouTube channel as
| well
| bethekidyouwant wrote:
| Exercise and take nicotine. My kids have a leg up it seems.
| websiteapi wrote:
| assuming this is true, perhaps it's best to freeze sperm
| regularly with labels that way if you go off the deep end you can
| snapshot quite literally your best self? some possible times -
| right before college, right after college, after you meet someone
| you think you'd marry (but before you do), after marriage.
|
| seems like a neat premise for a sci fi novella.
| xeromal wrote:
| Makes me wonder if that's some of the influence that different
| siblings get? The first born gets more ambition, the middle
| child chills, and the baby acts like a boomer.
|
| jk.
|
| Honestly, sounds like a great read!
| PeterHolzwarth wrote:
| Adding "jk" after a casual prejudiced insult to a demographic
| doesn't undo the prejudiced insult.
| xeromal wrote:
| I'm insulting myself. I'm describing what is my family
| dynamic.
| jibal wrote:
| No, you're insulting boomers, and you just doubled down.
| exe34 wrote:
| It was a self-deprecating joke which back-fired because
| nuance is lost on the internet. You got triggered, which
| is entirely human, but at this point, you're the one who
| is doubling down. Perhaps it's a good time to disconnect
| and enjoy some time with your family.
| jibal wrote:
| I didn't "down" in the first place, but "no you" is
| typical of your ilk. Your comment is dishonest denial of
| your ageist bigotry, an inability to take responsibility
| for your actions. And I don't take life advice from
| trolls, bigots, and the like.
|
| I won't respond further.
| exe34 wrote:
| I'm sorry you feel that way.
| bmacho wrote:
| Insulting yourself might have been your intent, but what
| you wrote is just a general ageist insult. It's like you
| when you fail something, and you make a racist analogy.
| You might want to insult yourself, you might think you
| are insulting yourself, but you are just racist.
| sallveburrpi wrote:
| Which demographic was casually insulted here? The
| babies/third children?
| renewiltord wrote:
| We need to add birth order to federally protected
| categories lest the thirdies try something on us
| deserving firstborn.
| jibal wrote:
| Boomers. How can anyone not grasp that? It's as if the
| insult is like water to fish, so people don't even
| perceive it.
| sallveburrpi wrote:
| Is calling someone boomer an insult in itself?
|
| I get that saying "boomer ruined the world for all the
| generations afterwards" is an insult, but the word itself
| is now considered an insult?
|
| Genuinely asking here; the constantly shifting landscape
| of what one is allowed to say when talking to US
| Americans is a bit hard for me to navigate and I
| currently only have online discourse as guidepost (which
| is like 1000% more toxic)
| jibal wrote:
| Your question is disingenuous, as the word "boomer"
| didn't appear isolated with no context. The statement was
| "the baby acts like a boomer", which clearly has a
| pejorative connotation--you yourself recognized this when
| you asked "Which demographic was casually insulted here?
| The babies/third children?" ... it's not even possible to
| think that babies are being insulted without thinking
| that saying they're like boomers is insulting. As I said,
| that seems to be an unquestioned assumption.
|
| As I said elsewhere, there is no single way that boomers
| behave. Boomers are simply people born in the post-war
| boom, from 1946-1964, and they display a huge range of
| traits. Virtually all statements referring to boomers
| collectively that aren't purely statistical are
| pejorative--ageist bigotry.
|
| > what one is allowed to say
|
| This oft repeated nonsense is bad faith. You're allowed
| to say whatever you want, and people are allowed to
| respond.
|
| I've said my piece and won't engage further.
| sallveburrpi wrote:
| How does "the baby acts like a boomer" have negative
| connotations? Sounds like you are personally offended
| that the word "boomer" exists and projecting here.
|
| > you yourself recognized this when you asked "Which
| demographic was casually insulted here
|
| I asked this because boomer was the only possible
| demographic in GPs post, not because I think the term
| boomer is pejorative in itself. Chilling and ambition are
| obviously not demographics but qualities.
|
| > This oft repeated nonsense is bad faith. You're allowed
| to say whatever you want, and people are allowed to
| respond.
|
| If you want to go there, this argument is bad faith as
| well... of course I can say anything, but you seem to be
| personally offended that the term boomer exists and I
| simply don't understand why.
|
| > all statements referring to boomers collectively that
| aren't purely statistical are pejorative
|
| Is that true for every other age group, so for example is
| every statement that refers to "millennials" or "zoomers"
| automatically pejorative and ageist?
| bmacho wrote:
| :\ why are you pretending that you don't know how casual
| *-isms work.
|
| In case you don't: "the baby acts like a boomer" is not
| insulting agaist third children, but it is casually
| ageist.
|
| It is _casually insulting_ , as in bringing a generally
| insulting framework into a different topic.
| windows_hater_7 wrote:
| Please tell me _you're_ joking.
| exe34 wrote:
| He was, see his comment from 1h before you posted.
| jibal wrote:
| You're right, and it's bizarre and sad that people don't
| even know what you mean.
| jibal wrote:
| There isn't any specific way that boomers behave.
| ralusek wrote:
| If my quicksave/quickload savescumming is to be observed, I'd
| be pining for that sperm from before I told the waitress "you
| too" wrt to her telling me to enjoy my meal.
| dietr1ch wrote:
| > I told the waitress "you too" wrt to her telling me to
| enjoy my meal.
|
| That's not too bad unless you are in a group and they make
| fun of you right away, but it's a fumble that you can fix and
| start a good play if you don't just get super nervous.
|
| Laugh it off, ask her if it's not the first one, ask her to
| join, even if you know she's actually working and can't.
|
| I've never done any improv, but it seems like something maybe
| everyone should do so we all can avoid awkward moments that
| stick for way longer than they should.
| tacitusarc wrote:
| Nah just yell "switcheroo!" then grab her outfit and
| suddenly you're the waitress and she's the diner with a
| meal to enjoy.
| yreg wrote:
| Is this a lucid dream?
| verall wrote:
| > savescumming
|
| Savecumming?
| lowdest wrote:
| Slang term for frequently reloading game state from recent
| save when a non-ideal outcome occurs. E.g. this method can
| be used to collect rare outcomes from a RNG-based game
| event.
| andrepd wrote:
| > saves cumming
| EPWN3D wrote:
| That'd be a great basis for a controlled experiment.
| bflesch wrote:
| Nobel prize might be waiting for two sets of octomom same-egg
| offspring with compatible genders that join together to have
| n=8 firstborn children which are conceived at same date under
| the same conditions (no alcohol, no ongoing infections,
| etc.), and the pregnancy period is spent together.
|
| It will definitely need 8 scientist relationships, a lot of
| energy and money.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| I think trying to "tune" your kids in any way is asking to be
| disappointed. My three kids could not be more different and
| they all have the same mother, grew up in the same house, etc.
|
| If "microRNA" profiles have any influence, I would wager it's
| very small.
| an-allen wrote:
| But your kids will likely not have your insights and
| experiences so "tuning" is another word for broadening their
| awareness.
| jibal wrote:
| That is precisely the wrong sort of conclusion to draw from
| this clickbaity article.
| sdf4j wrote:
| > they all have the same mother, grew up in the same house,
| etc.
|
| I'm pretty sure the first one didn't have siblings, and the
| second only had one. Also their mother is not the same person
| after raising the first kid, or raising two.
|
| Parenting never have reproducible conditions.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Agree, those are some environmental differences. But any
| "microRNA" profile I might have contributed to the
| conception of each would be broadly similar. My life was
| pretty stable and levels of stress, diet, exercise, etc.
| were all about the same for all three.
| f1shy wrote:
| There are even identical twins that have different
| behaviors, characters and make different decisions.
| eipipuz wrote:
| I agree with what you are saying but remember the twin
| scenario. Spoiler alert, the kids are nonetheless
| different.
| adrianN wrote:
| I have twins (a boy and a girl) and you could tell they
| have a completely different temperament about two weeks
| after birth.
| leoedin wrote:
| I'm a twin - admittedly boy/girl, so already with some
| fundamental differences - and we are very, very different
| people. Always have been. Different interests, different
| ways of seeing the world, different attitudes to
| competition, sports, social relationships etc.
|
| Now I've got 2 boys, and even at fairly young ages they
| were very different. I'd say by 6 months old the basics
| of their personalities were visible, and they haven't
| changed vastly as they've grown.
| bugglebeetle wrote:
| The twins I have known are the same. I would assume it
| has something to do with a desire to differentiate
| themselves from one another, but they always seemed far
| more dissimilar in personality and affect than my
| siblings.
| riffraff wrote:
| OTOH could be siblings tend to be more similar as the
| smaller ones try to copy the older ones (my son would
| dress up as a ballerina to play with his sister when he
| was little, my smaller brother would acquiesce to play
| chess with me just to spend time together etc).
|
| I have given up trying to explain child development,
| there's just too many variables.
| fhsm wrote:
| An adjacent point but despite ubiquitous birth order
| superstitions quality literature consensus seems to be that
| birth order is not a large driver of predictable
| differences. Example:
|
| https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4655556/
| renewiltord wrote:
| Well that's just
|
| > _No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it 's not
| the same river and he's not the same man_
| there_is_try wrote:
| When expectations are bundled with trying, then yes
| disappointment is inevitable. Expectations are not a good
| reason to not try.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| On the other hand, you sometimes get identical twins who
| share every random tick and tendency and finish each others
| thoughts.
| jibal wrote:
| > if you go off the deep end you can snapshot quite literally
| your best self
|
| Or your worst, since the article also suggests that bad habits
| can be epigenetically useful to the offspring.
|
| I would hold off reaching any conclusions from this clickbait.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| <thinks about activities during college> ehhhh I think _before_
| college would be highly preferable lol.
|
| Though I've never had nor wanted kids in the first place
| anyway.
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| Without the sci-fi, if you take people with 10 to 12 kids, you
| have great accidental, natural, objective experiments here.
|
| You can study those kids and compare them to the reported
| lifestyle of the parents at the time before their conception.
| theturtlemoves wrote:
| > assuming this is true, perhaps it's best to freeze sperm
| regularly with labels that way if you go off the deep end you
| can snapshot quite literally your best self?
|
| Then you'll probably have kids who resemble Wim Hof
| hk1337 wrote:
| Like restoring to a particular save point in a game after
| you've done something stupid.
| harshreality wrote:
| Someone who works out every day will obviously have different
| metabolic and microRNA profiles; assuming that line of research
| holds up and those biomolecular profiles make it into the zygote,
| survive many replication cycles, and act as developmental
| signalling molecules affecting gene expression during embryonic
| and fetal development, there could be life-long effects.
|
| What can't happen is inter-generational transmission of
| particular subjective experiences that aren't paired with
| specific, unique metabolic, hormonal, and gene-expression
| signatures. Only biomolecular-mediated phenotypes, the most
| general and obvious of which would be things like stress or
| exercise or diet, make sense to be transmitted that way.
|
| For instance, someone who's chronically afraid might transmit
| some kind of stress/fear modulating signals to offspring. Someone
| who's afraid of a specific thing, however, cannot transmit fear
| of that specific thing unless there's some incredible and
| unexplored cognition-to-biomolecular signalling mechanism that's
| entirely unexplored and undescribed. Therefore, I don't know why
| the article uses the term "lived experience", which is too broad
| a term to describe what the research suggests might be occurring.
| yearolinuxdsktp wrote:
| We know that severe stress (such as trauma) leaves chemical
| marks on the genes, potentially passed down to the offspring.
| For example, this paper writes about an "accumulating amount of
| evidence of an enduring effect of trauma exposure to be passed
| to offspring transgenerationally:
| https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5977074/
|
| Though "lived experience" can encompass a lot of things, it
| definitely encompasses severe stress.
|
| For example, constantly worrying about money because you're
| poor can definitely put you under severe stress. Also, growing
| up without secure attachment to your caretakers, being asked to
| do role reversal (having to take care of your parents as a
| child), things like that will generate complex PTSD.
| diab0lic wrote:
| The comment you're replying to suggests "lived experience" is
| too broad, not too narrow. The issue isn't that it fails to
| include your example. It fails to exclude other things. Part
| of my lived experience today was seeing a manatee. It is
| unlikely this will be passed on.
| thfuran wrote:
| And the comment you're replying to suggests that since many
| lived experiences are plausibly heritable, the term is
| appropriate. In any case, the context in which it is
| actually used in the article seems beyond all but the most
| pedantic reproach:
|
| >The first is how a father's body physically encodes lived
| experience, such as stress, diet, exercise or nicotine use
|
| And that's a single sentence partway through the article.
| From the beginning, the refrain is the list of the sorts of
| things that seem to have heritable effect, not the phrase
| "lived experiences".
|
| >Research into how a father's choices -- such as diet,
| exercise, stress, nicotine use -- may transfer traits to
| his children
|
| >Within a sperm's minuscule head are stowaway molecules,
| which enter the egg and convey information about the
| father's fitness, such as diet, exercise habits and stress
| levels, to his offspring
|
| Etc. The article is clearly not attempting to suggest that
| all experiences are heritable.
| synergy7 wrote:
| It feels so wonderfully weird reading about some else
| seeing a manatee today. I too saw a manatee while walking
| with my kids today. The interesting part was our
| navigational strategies complementing each other (me -
| misremembering the details of a road closure, and them -
| getting curious about what a bunch of people at a marina
| are looking at) to find a group of manatees in a place we
| didn't know they can be found.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| > The authors pointed out "there are significant drawbacks in
| the existing human literature" including "lack of
| longitudinal studies, methodological heterogeneity, selection
| of tissue type, and the influence of developmental stage and
| trauma type on methylation outcomes"
|
| The literature in this area is a mess, has become highly
| politicized. I'd give it another 10 or so years before I made
| any strong statements about these effects in humans. Famously
| the study of Holocaust survivors' descendants didn't show
| transgenerational effects.
| an-allen wrote:
| A lot of this is transmitted via the language. The stories we
| form as a result of events in our lives, have power to set
| our values in all areas. These myths of the self, have what
| is essentially a value manifest for someone. And these myths,
| can be so strongly held that it will influence the person and
| family's moods, actions, habits.
|
| What is important is to note that there are many formulas for
| consciousness. Some are truely bonkers, some are just
| fundamental truth. And some... have yet to be discovered.
|
| Permutations and combinatorics create a hyperspace of all
| ridiculous things!
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| > Someone who's afraid of a specific thing, however, cannot
| transmit fear of that specific thing unless there's some
| incredible and unexplored cognition-to-biomolecular signalling
| mechanism that's entirely unexplored and undescribed.
|
| While there is absolutely no conclusive evidence, there are a
| few studies that indicate this is a possibility.
|
| One such study from 2013:
| https://www.nature.com/articles/nn.3594
|
| Again, there's not strong proof- but at least plausible
| evidence.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| It does depend on how specific the thing is. Spiders in
| general maybe, but for a particular type of spider seems to
| have close to nil possibility.
| crazygringo wrote:
| But if, evolutionarily, there are only 20 common recurring
| threats that you need to fear (but each comes at some kind
| of cost, like you won't hunt in an area that would
| otherwise provide food), it would make sense to pass on
| those fears in a generational way. So the possible things
| come from a preset list that has evolved over millions of
| years, that recur over and over but only in specific times
| and places.
| CuriouslyC wrote:
| Not much of a stretch to consider that the brain is wired to
| initiate biochemistry that modifies the germ line.
| diego_moita wrote:
| This reminds me of the transgenerational trauma on the
| descendants of the Dutch Hongerwinter of 1944-45. Generations
| after, people carry in their epigenics the effects of that traged
| y:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epigenetics_of_anxiety_and_str...
| downboots wrote:
| Anxiously looking forward to AGI in the form of ubermause
| Cyphase wrote:
| 42
| jjmarr wrote:
| > For instance, mouse fathers exposed to nicotine(opens a new
| tab) sire male pups with livers that are good at disarming not
| just nicotine but cocaine and other toxins as well.
|
| queue rationalist fathers microdosing nicotine patches before
| conception to give their kids the best chance at abusing drugs.
| guerrilla wrote:
| > rationalist
|
| Not without a new cult spin-off you don't!
| sallveburrpi wrote:
| What does disarming mean here?
|
| I wound read it as "the drug has less effect" - so in that case
| you can better abuse these drugs if you are worse at
| "disarming" them I guess
| Liquix wrote:
| perhaps "making less harmful to the body"? this could
| potentially be accomplished separately from making them less
| effective
| walthamstow wrote:
| I would have thought the main armament that nicotine has is
| its addictiveness
| temp0826 wrote:
| "Hard headed", "not a cheap date", "not a lightweight"? Hard
| to say if increased tolerance is good or bad (especially if
| we're uncertain about how addictiveness/susceptibility to
| addictive behavior it passed)
| bjrobz wrote:
| ok now is my chance.
|
| what is this (opens new tab) phenomenon?!
| jvm___ wrote:
| "microdose cocaine"
| saghm wrote:
| In the article, there's a link in the text right before they
| put that parenthetical. I'm guessing they're saying that the
| link interested them so they clicked it to read but opened it
| in a new tab so they could finish the current article first.
| roywiggins wrote:
| It seems to be hidden text in the page? Either way, it just
| shows up alongside links when you copy text from the
| article.
| stavros wrote:
| Probably a screen reader callout.
| tstrimple wrote:
| Damn. I didn't start substance abuse until after all my
| children were sired. Apparently I have done them an injustice
| by compromising their resistance to cocaine and other toxins. I
| have failed as a father!
| amitav1 wrote:
| Well, there's always next time.
| lachlan_gray wrote:
| Earlier this year moving home to Canada, instead of flying I
| bought a van in California and drove it back with all my stuff.
|
| I was taken aback to learn my dad did the exact same thing at my
| age!
| there_is_try wrote:
| Any particular reason for moving back to Canada ?
| fb03 wrote:
| Yes, it was configured in his mRNA
| agentifysh wrote:
| oh shit....
| shevy-java wrote:
| "researchers, including those spearheading the work, are cautious
| about overselling their results"
|
| Either it is correct; or it is not. Perhaps it is somewhat
| correct, but then it may not be fully correct, so it would
| contain wrong information.
|
| I write this here because science does not really work well when
| it is based on speculation. So this article is weird. It starts
| by speculating about something rather than analyse the article.
| It then continues to "textbooks have to be rewritten". Well, I
| think if you are in science, you need to demonstrate that all
| your claims made need to be correct - and others can verify it,
| without any restriction whatsoever.
|
| > "We just don't have really any understanding of how RNAs can do
| this, and that's the hand-wavy part," Conine said.
|
| So their theory is incomplete as of yet. That's not good.
|
| There are examples of where theories were lateron shown to be
| wrong.
|
| See this article:
|
| https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1197258
|
| It was later redacted - a total fabrication. A lie.
| jaredklewis wrote:
| > Either it is correct; or it is not. Perhaps it is somewhat
| correct, but then it may not be fully correct, so it would
| contain wrong information.
|
| I don't understand your criticism.
|
| It makes complete sense that the researchers are worried about
| the research being oversold. It's routine for media to take a
| scientific finding and grossly exaggerate its impact, i.e. "New
| research proves you can exercise your way to a fit child" or
| whatever.
|
| This is science, we don't know if anything is "correct." The
| more compelling the research, the more we can adjust our priors
| as to what is "correct."
|
| > There are examples of where theories were lateron shown to be
| wrong.
|
| There are also lots of examples where theories were later not
| shown to be wrong. What's your point?
|
| Do you have an actual, concrete criticism of the methodology of
| the epigentic research in TFA, or are your just bloviating?
| eximius wrote:
| Detecting an effect is present is separate from effect power
| and mechanism. Showing an effect is present is usually the
| first step before the other two.
| MyOutfitIsVague wrote:
| There is plenty of room in science for research that is just to
| examine and collect data. I don't understand your argument that
| science should only be to demonstrate claims and "completing"
| theories. Is science not about experimenting to slowly form a
| more complete understanding about how our world works? Research
| that does little more than collect novel data and show probable
| correlations is still extremely valuable.
| mmooss wrote:
| These flaws aren't failings of the article, but univeral to
| science, knowledge, and human endeavor:
|
| > Either it is correct; or it is not. Perhaps it is somewhat
| correct, but then it may not be fully correct, so it would
| contain wrong information.
|
| This describes all science and all knowledge; if that's not
| good enough, nothing is good enough. Everything somewhat
| correct and somewhat incorrect; the best stuff is much more of
| the former. Newton's Laws are mostly correct, somewhat
| incorrect.
|
| > science does not really work well when it is based on
| speculation
|
| Speculation is the foundation of science: it leads to an
| hypothesis, which leads to research, which leads to more
| speculation.
|
| > their theory is incomplete as of yet. That's not good.
|
| That also is the nature of all science. For example, papers
| include analyses of their own blind spots and weaknesses, and
| end with suggestions for further research by others.
|
| > There are examples of where theories were lateron shown to be
| wrong.
|
| That's also part of science and all human endeavor. If you
| disallow that, we might as well go back to being illiterate -
| everything we read is flawed, and inevitably some is wrong.
| JimBlackwood wrote:
| > So their theory is incomplete as of yet. That's not good.
|
| I hard disagree. Your comment to me reads as if a paper should
| either prove a new theory or disprove an existing theory.
|
| However, publishing new results without a clear understanding
| of how it works is just as valid and this seems to be that. In
| Phsyics and Astronomy, new observations are often published
| without a theory of how it works. This is not a bad thing, that
| is part of the collaborative nature of science. The same holds
| true for papers suggesting a new theory, but lacking either
| observational or theoretical proof.
| indigodaddy wrote:
| How about my grandfather's effect, and up the chain?
| Animats wrote:
| Is this a revival of Lysenkoism?[1]
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism
| jmcgough wrote:
| Every time we think Lamarckism is finally dead, we get stuff
| like the article.
| technick wrote:
| I guess this makes sense if you also consider the history of dog
| breeding. The best traits are always breed forward into future
| generations, those characteristics could be how athletic the dog
| is or how friendly the dog is.
| jibal wrote:
| You're talking about traits passed via DNA, which is nothing
| new ... this is quite different.
| wakawaka28 wrote:
| From the perspective of an individual breeder, they cannot
| know how much of a trait is from DNA or not. It may be more
| likely to be DNA-driven if you can prove that the trait is
| durable over many generations, in different environments. At
| least, that is my guess.
| jibal wrote:
| This completely misses the point.
| jibal wrote:
| > "This study shows that paternal exercise can confer benefits --
| enhanced endurance and metabolic health -- to offspring,"
|
| So good habits can be good for offspring.
|
| > For instance, mouse fathers exposed to nicotine(opens a new
| tab) sire male pups with livers that are good at disarming not
| just nicotine but cocaine and other toxins as well.
|
| So bad habits can be good for offspring.
|
| > "We just don't have really any understanding of how RNAs can do
| this, and that's the hand-wavy part,"
|
| It seems to me to all be the handwavy part. I'm happy to wait
| until the research is considerably further advanced, past the
| clickbait stage.
| yes_man wrote:
| Theres huge uncertainty and layered assumptions in all of
| microbiology and biochemistry about how exactly things work on
| small scale. Because it is really hard to study live reactions
| in little things you can just barely see on an electron
| microscope.
|
| But yet humanity has managed to assert statistical truths about
| for example genetics and explain countless diseases, even cure
| and alleviate some. So even if you don't have a theory on how
| exactly something works from the ground up, if you have
| statistical evidence, plenty of useful and practical advances
| can be built top-bottom and we have outcomes that validate
| this.
|
| Not giving any opinion on this piece specifically but just
| saying there can be scientific value even if the details are
| hand-wavy.
| roywiggins wrote:
| For an example, scientists discovered both viruses and
| genetics long before they knew the molecular basis of either
| of them.
| jibal wrote:
| I'm well aware of that. The point is that people are drawing
| all sorts of unwarranted conclusions from this lay report on
| early stage research.
| lutusp wrote:
| > The point is that people are drawing all sorts of
| unwarranted conclusions from this lay report on early stage
| research.
|
| That is partly because no one seems willing to summarize
| this work, in concise form, for nonspecialists. Such a
| summary might be, "This is an important finding, but it
| doesn't mean Lysenko was right, and the term 'inheritance'
| doesn't have just one meaning."
|
| I think the term "inheritance" for both DNA and epigenetic
| information transfers (as in the linked article) is
| innately confusing.
| AlecSchueler wrote:
| If you ignore "good" and "bad" then it's just "traits can be
| passed through this mechanism" egg seems a lot more reasonable.
| AlecSchueler wrote:
| s/egg/which/
| sejje wrote:
| You don't egg randomly inserted words?
| cwmoore wrote:
| eh... can someone please accurately vibe code this for
| me? s/(s\\\/egg\\\/which)/s\/egg\/egg
| which\//
| schemathings wrote:
| Now I want McDonalds McEggWhich
| jibal wrote:
| But that's not what it says. RNA fragments are entering the
| ovum and having _some sort_ of effect .... that 's quite
| different from passing traits the way genes on chromosomes
| do.
| matt-attack wrote:
| But shouldn't there have been an evolutionary advantage for
| such a thing to develop?
| lazide wrote:
| Not necessarily for the individual.
|
| Some trees have mechanisms, for instance, where they die
| quickly but signal other trees if exposed to certain
| issues, allowing the other trees to put up a better
| defense.
|
| Ants and other insects sometimes do the same thing.
|
| Essentially a 'jumps on the grenade' gene.
| larusso wrote:
| I agree. The example with Nicotine intake having a somewhat
| positive effect on the children feels too wild at the money.
| Think of all the kids of the 60th and 70th. They must be immune
| to most toxins ;). Yes I take this example to the extreme. I
| also feel that this could maybe contradict what we learned from
| evolution theory. Why would it take so long for a given treat
| to establish itself. Maybe I mix too much into one bag after
| reading this one article.
| lukan wrote:
| If true, I suppose there is also a opportunity cost involved.
| Meaning selecting for better coping with nicotine, does not
| help selecting for smarter offspring and maybe even
| preventing that. So it might be somewhat positive but at a
| cost unknown.
|
| Also there are the very known costs of nicotine damaging
| sperms, or of course being in literal smoke as a child (or
| adult) and deal with those real effects.
| sigmoid10 wrote:
| >I also feel that this could maybe contradict what we learned
| from evolution theory.
|
| It doesn't, but the article doesn't go into this detail, so
| people unfamiliar with the field wouldn't understand why. The
| keyword is epigenetics. I.e. how certain genes become
| activated or deactivated through behaviour and/or
| environmental influences. But the DNA sequence itself remains
| unaltered. So no evolution necessary. There are basically a
| bunch of molecules than sit on top of your DNA that regulate
| gene expression. They don't just tell a cell to behave like a
| skin cell or a brain cell, they also regulate the entire
| cellular metabolism. The discovery that male sperm can also
| transmit this epigenetic information to offspring is
| relatively new, but now that we know that, it makes total
| sense that these gene-expression-modifying behaviours in
| fathers could affect their children. After all, they simply
| get to start with a good (or bad) bunch of epigenetic
| markers. They will not persist across many generations
| though, so it has no real long term effect on evolution. It
| may even be an evolved mechanism that allows organisms to
| respond to environmental changes on timeframes that would be
| prohibited by evolution.
| pcl wrote:
| > _"They will not persist across many generations though"_
|
| Why not? Is there some tempering mechanism on epigenetic
| transfer? I could imagine that some sperm-conferred
| epigenetic markers could continue down the male descendants
| unbroken.
| jibal wrote:
| Because chromosomes in nuclei reproduce via very
| sophisticated and highly regulated processes; random
| epigenetic molecules do not.
| cwmoore wrote:
| Makes me wonder about how the two interact in the human
| phenomenon of generational oscillations
| jibal wrote:
| Not all epigenetics is regulation of gene expression. The
| article says "these molecules transmit traits to offspring
| and that they can regulate embryonic development after
| fertilization" -- that's from the reporter, but I don't
| have faith that "transmit traits" is at all accurate--it
| certainly isn't true in the way that genes express traits.
| And then they quote an actual epigeneticist saying "We just
| don't have really any understanding of how RNAs can do
| this, and that's the hand-wavy part"
| sigmoid10 wrote:
| >that's from the reporter, but I don't have faith that
| "transmit traits" is at all accurate
|
| It is pretty accurate, even if we don't understand all
| details yet. Here's a review article of the current
| research that's not from a popsci journalist:
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-37820-2
| skinwill wrote:
| Speaking mostly from personal experience here, if a kid gets
| a suped-up liver from their dad's smoking habits, cool. But
| how many kids fathers stopped smoking when the kid was born?
| My point, the father's smoking habits may have passed down a
| strong liver but his continued use damaged the child's lungs
| and possibly more.
|
| These mechanisms of epigenetic inheritance or whatever need
| much more study. It is far too early to draw any conclusions
| other than we need to keep researching.
| schiffern wrote:
| >Think of all the kids of the 60th and 70th. They must be
| immune to most toxins ;).
|
| 60th and 70th what?? :)
|
| But seriously though, "immune" is a humorous exaggeration,
| but I'm not sure we have data to rule out the idea that this
| cohort has increased tolerance to some environmental toxins.
|
| So it's possible the level of harm we see today _is already_
| "post-" this protective effect, if any.
| dotancohen wrote:
| > 60th and 70th what?? :)
|
| GP means that from the 1960s to the 1970s many people in
| his part of the world were deliberately putting "toxins" in
| their bodies.
|
| He means that the hippie generation and disco generation
| took a lot of drugs.
| schiffern wrote:
| I figured, just a joke playing off their typo (hence the
| smiley).
|
| There were plenty of non-"drug" toxins people were
| exposed to where levels peaked around that time -- leaded
| gasoline, early food contact plastics with unsafe
| additives, pesticides that are now banned, etc. But
| thanks Nancy Reagan. ;)
| vbezhenar wrote:
| Humans put toxins into their bodies for the entire
| history of humankind.
| DANmode wrote:
| > They must be immune to most toxins ;)
|
| Allergies and cancer are way up.
|
| There's multiple causes behind those, this is almost
| certainly one.
| DANmode wrote:
| You took a left-turn:
|
| Nicotine is on-par with caffeine in isolation.
|
| It's the rest of the crap in smokes and vapes to be concerned
| with.
|
| I was surprised to learn nicotine is used by functional doctors
| to treat CFS-adjacent conditions, and the mechanisms therein.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| nicotine is significantly more harmful than caffeine,
| although it is definitely way better than the other stuff in
| tobacco and not a carcinogen.
|
| let's not get started on the CFS stuff, treatments for
| functional disorders are often placebo-resembling.
| DANmode wrote:
| > nicotine is significantly more harmful than caffeine
|
| " _Significantly_ " is an opinion.
|
| It's more toxic by weight, yes.
|
| Messes with vascular more than caffeine.
|
| Both are an excellent way to screw up heart health.
|
| > let's not get started on the CFS stuff, treatments for
| functional disorders are often placebo-resembling.
|
| Personally haven't needed or wanted to use nicotine, but I
| _have_ recovered from an array of chronic illnesses; I'll
| get started on anything I please, thanks,
|
| especially seeing how many of my peers are hopelessly
| exhausted and existing on abusive amounts of
| caffeine/prescription stimulants to get by.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| cfs, like other functional disorders like chronic lyme,
| is best treated by cognitive behavioral therapy.
| DANmode wrote:
| Off-topic completely now,
|
| but for _your_ information, one last question:
|
| does your opinion cover patents who have blood test
| results _showing_ Lyme, and one or more known
| coinfections like Bab, Bart, (all known, and treatable
| bacterial infections),
|
| or are you another Reddit regurgitation expert?
| whimsicalism wrote:
| i think this isn't going to be a productive conversation
| regardless of what i say. take care
| DANmode wrote:
| We're on the same page.
| somenameforme wrote:
| > Both are an excellent way to screw up heart health.
|
| Plain black coffee has, somewhat surprisingly, been
| repeatedly demonstrated to be very healthy - with
| substantial reductions in all-cause mortality as well as
| the chances of developing cardiovascular disease. I tend
| to live somewhat spartanly in terms of consumption, and
| wanted to drop my coffee habit which looks something like
| this [1], but looking up the data on it left me dropping
| that idea real fast.
|
| [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhdCslFcKFU
| DANmode wrote:
| Coffee [?] caffeine, despite the coy conflations in
| office memes.
|
| If you're grinding your own (mycotoxins are real), hard
| to find a cleaner healthier form of caffeine than coffee!
|
| Lots of morning-and-day soda and energy drink consumers.
| More than we even see, assuredly.
| jibal wrote:
| > You took a left-turn
|
| I certainly didn't; I simply quoted a sentence from the
| article. (I've noticed that some people have difficulty
| distinguishing between the person who quotes something and
| the person being quoted ... it might be a Sally-Anne effect.)
|
| > It's the rest of the crap in smokes and vapes to be
| concerned with.
|
| Yes, which makes this article even _less_ reliable.
| DANmode wrote:
| The part where you said nicotine was a bad habit seemed to
| be _your_ words,
|
| an unquoted section.
|
| You can attribute that opinion to the author, or society,
| or whoever now, if you choose,
|
| regardless _my_ point remains: nicotine shouldn't be filed
| under "bad habit" by default.
| didntknowyou wrote:
| although it's like milk too. exposure at an early age leads to
| the body producing more lactase enzyme to digest it. but lack
| of exposure often makes people lactose intolerant.
| hshdhdhj4444 wrote:
| Also "mouse models".
|
| The only purpose mouse models serve is to fill the popular
| press with sensational findings and torture a lot of mice.
| oceansky wrote:
| For this particular research, it's possible as only 5% of
| mouse experiments become available to humans.
|
| But a lot of life-saving medicaments and techniques started
| as mouse testings, including Penicillin, cancer drugs and the
| polio vaccine.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| the only purpose of hacker news comments is to aggravate
| readers with overly reductive takes
| Vaslo wrote:
| They're mice. I wouldn't worry a whole lot about them.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| the section immediately after that you didn't quote:
|
| > evidence keeps piling up. Most recently, in November 2025, a
| comprehensive paper (opens a new tab) published in Cell
| Metabolism traced the downstream molecular effects of a father
| mouse's exercise regimen on sperm microRNAs that target genes
| "critical for mitochondrial function and metabolic control" in
| a developing embryo. The researchers found many of those same
| RNAs overexpressed in the sperm of well-exercised human men.
|
| https://www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/fulltext/S1550-4131(25)...
| jibal wrote:
| I and others generally don't quote things that aren't
| relevant to the point we're making and I'm not keen on the
| crypt-accusation. I didn't say that there aren't downstream
| molecular effects--clearly there are. Rather, the article is
| very unclear about the nature of epigenetics, and the wording
| about "transmitting traits" is misleading at best and leads
| to many unwarranted conclusions, as evidenced in the comments
| here. The statements I quoted are _not_ about transmitting
| traits. e.g., "paternal exercise" refers to a trait of
| exercising, taking time to exercise, being motivated to
| exercise, etc. The "conferred benefit" of "enhanced endurance
| and metabolic health" is a _different_ trait. If that is the
| trait being transmitted then that should be the trait being
| identified in male parents, not "exercise". Similarly, being
| exposed to nicotine is not the trait of having livers that
| are good at "disarming" nicotine, cocaine, and a host of
| other toxins ... and this is an extraordinary claim that
| requires extraordinary evidence, and the article provides
| _one_ citation, from 2017.
|
| And as an epigeneticist says in the article, we have no idea
| how RNA is having the effects its having.
|
| As I said, I'm happy to wait until we have moved beyond this
| early stage of research before making any radical inferences.
| shwaj wrote:
| In the "paternal exercise" case the trait isn't the _habit_
| of exercising, it's the metabolic changes of exercise that
| are (apparently) conferred to both father and offspring.
| RobotToaster wrote:
| I feel like the ghost of Lysenko is laughing at us.
| bradley13 wrote:
| Epigenetics is fascinating. For example, the well-docunented
| effects of war on the following generations. For example,
| longevity.
| tsoukase wrote:
| I can imagine how difficult it would be to differentiate between
| nature and nurture in such human observations. An exercising vs
| smoking parent affects the child because of his RNA or his
| behaviour? Identical twins studies have their limitations in
| number of participants.
| KellyCriterion wrote:
| I have two children:
|
| Prior to them, I didnt think that behaviour or traits are
| inheritable.
|
| When one of them was aronud 3 or 3.5, I observed an interesting
| behaviour: It was about the meal, which contained fries - and
| ketchup. He saw that the ketchup was flowing slowly towards the
| fries and reached there finally - he became funnily hectict,
| trying to prevent even more ketchup touching the fries.
|
| Today I think he behaved that way ... because ... on my plate
| which fries & ketchup ... if this happens ... then ... you know
| :-D :-D :-D :-D It drives me nuts, really - if I am at a
| restaurant, I ask always for separte plates for things which are
| fried, because I love the crust and it gets destroyed if any type
| of gravy is scattered around the plate :-D
|
| Or maybe my son just found out the same, and then there is no
| inheritance. Im fine with this as well. :-D
|
| But what I can clearly see, is: In their body shape I can see
| that their mother and I were super-fit-in-shape when they were
| "created".
| spiderfarmer wrote:
| Nurture.
| KellyCriterion wrote:
| Note sure if I understand what you mean?
|
| You mean that we showed them already by that age to not mix
| fries & ketchup? :-D If children are that small and you are
| sitting with two of them at the table, handing over those
| ideas to them in a "nurturing way" is the last thing on what
| you can focus on with two small kids at the table :-))
|
| And its always great if someone gives a downvote here if you
| share some personal life stories :-D
| amitav1 wrote:
| I believe that GP is trying to say that your child picked
| up that behaviour by watching you.
|
| Monkey see, monkey do. (No offence intended towards your
| child.)
| rkomorn wrote:
| For some reason this just made me think of the "I learned
| it from you, dad!" PSAs of my childhood.
|
| Edit: apparently it was "I learned it by watching you!"
| decimalenough wrote:
| Fascinating! So in addition to the source code (DNA), when you
| spawn a new child process nature passes along a config file (RNA)
| as well.
| hleszek wrote:
| Inheriting environment variables
| childintime wrote:
| Another example of "evolution" being deprecated in favor of
| "backpropagation" and the result is an evolution towards a
| holistic intelligence, to which everything contributes?
|
| IOW, a Large Life Model?
| diego_moita wrote:
| No, the article is about science, not religion.
| thrance wrote:
| Lysenkoism[1] reborn? Hopefully not.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| Is this not the basis of epigenetics? Don't we already have
| human-based examples?
|
| While I don't recall the details there was an example of how
| starvation (of eventual parents) during WW II impacted the
| children. There is also, a similar example of how the effects of
| diet was passed along during The Great Depression.
| blitz_skull wrote:
| I always find it fascinating when science catches up to the
| Bible.
|
| The Bible clearly articulates some form of generational "pass-
| through" for the sins of the father passing to the children.
|
| While I do think it largely refers to a spiritual judgement, it's
| hard to ignore the real-world examples of abuse that always seem
| to repeat themselves without a huge effort on the part of,
| someone, usually the child after they've grown up, to break the
| cycle.
|
| Source: I've seen a lot of brokenness in our country's foster
| system.
| timbit42 wrote:
| Where does the Bible say that the sins of the father are passed
| to the children? Ezekiel 18 says exactly the opposite.
|
| Romans 5 doesn't say we inherit Adam's sin but that we inherit
| the consequences of Adam's sin.
|
| Exodus 20:5 says the iniquity of the fathers pass down for
| three or four generations. This is not referring to the sin
| itself, but to the effects of the sin of the children who grow
| up watching their parents sin and learn to do the same.
|
| Psalm 51:5 says children are brought forth in iniquity and in
| sin they are conceived, but this doesn't refer to the child's
| sin but to the parent's sin.
|
| The concept of original sin didn't come into being until early
| in the fifth century but there really isn't scriptural support
| for it.
| EGreg wrote:
| You know, evolution people are some of the most confident
| bullshitters ever.
|
| They like to tell people that if you don't believe their theory,
| then you don't believe science.
|
| For such a long time they made fun of Lamarckian ideas as totally
| discredited, then once in a while stuff like this gets published
| and the scientists quoted say "we still don't know how" it
| happens. Yeah but the orthodoxy is sure it can't happen in any
| way than their theories say.
|
| "Epigenetics" has become a socially safe word to acknowledge that
| "random" mutation and natural selection doesn't explain
| everything. (That word "natural" is doing a lot of work there, by
| the way.)
|
| The biggest thing is conflating all the theories under
| "evolution" as a catch-all term. The theory of common descent has
| a lot of evidence (like the phylogenic tree matching radiocarbon
| dating) so "evolution fans" latch on to that to literally shame
| anyone for eg questioning that ALL speciation happens by random
| mutation and natural selection. Regardless of any mathematical
| arguments, irreducibility arguments etc.
|
| They're like the bitcoin maxis of science.
|
| They love to embrace "just-so" stories with no proof, as long as
| the story plausibly explains how a particular feature or
| phenomenon came about while sticking to ONLY random mutation and
| natural selection, they favor it.
|
| Some of them even go so far as to say that ABIOGENESIS is
| happening on other planets and just throw a ton of time and
| planets at the problem. Keep in mind that EVOLUTION as they
| themselves define it requires reproduction, and thus cannot
| explain abiogenesis in principle. Besides this, the Kolmogorov
| complexity of the smallest replicating cell that can randomly
| mutate and reproduce for natural selection is astronomically
| high. But no matter. They will postulate proimordial soups with
| buckyballs, RNA world theories, etc. Just throw enough time and
| planets at it.
|
| And if that doesn't work, they'll use the anthropic principle and
| postulate a multiverse with as many worlds as we need to explain
| fine-tuning of the universe! So things are the way they are
| because we are here to observe them. If a Richard Dawkins can't
| overcome a mathematical objections their with enough planets, a
| fellow atheist Larry Krauss can help him out with any number of
| multiverses, the mindset is the same.
|
| This is not science, people. This is a mindset. It would rather
| uncritically propagate "just-so" storiess with zero evidence for
| them, than look for actual alternative explanations. "It's the
| best we can do", they always say.
|
| It wouldn't be so bad if they didn't weaponize this approach for
| decades to drive people out of academia or make sure they don't
| get published if they question the orthodoxy.
|
| _PS: While the critique above says NOTHING about intelligent
| design, proponents of some kind of intelligent design have faced
| a frustrating sleight of hand for years. While they were derided
| for having a "god of the gaps" for their bias, a different bias
| went entirely unnoticed on the other side with the word "natural"
| in natural selection:
|
| Any newly discovered mechanism can be absorbed retroactively as
| "natural"
|
| But design-like explanations are excluded even if they would
| explain the data more compactly
|
| This is not because they were tested and failed, but because they
| violate the methodological rule.
|
| So the theory becomes:
|
| "Whatever happened, happened naturally -- and we define 'natural'
| as whatever happened."
|
| That makes the term unfalsifiable in principle_
| ashurbanipal wrote:
| There is no notable evidence here, just theoretical hints.
| Sympathetic magic, translated into modern context.
| Ari_Ugwu wrote:
| It makes a kind of intuitive sense to me. Given I have no real
| understanding of the topic. Perfect click bait to get me to feel
| smart waxing intellectual on the toilet.
|
| It's interesting to think this information being passed is
| something like "Heads up. This dude does a lot of exercise which
| means it must be crucial to survival wherever we are."
| 6510 wrote:
| But only recent data related to successful reproduction.
| dgan wrote:
| Sooo how many leetcodes i d have to do before my future child
| aytomatically knows it all at birth?
| poemxo wrote:
| Maybe we should stop viewing DNA as source code or I guess more
| importantly as the sole source of heritability. It's clear that
| parts of DNA are somehow variably expressed. Different sections
| of DNA are "unrolled" depending on how you live your life, and
| unrolled DNA is part of an entire complex. Now it seems parts of
| that complex are heritable.
|
| Just a guess. I'm not a biologist.
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| Classic patriarchy!
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