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Re:Paternal stress in mice given to offspring via RNA packed... by SunSparc on Monday October 26, 2015 @11:52AM (#10452201)
More proof that genetics is not read-only.
Re:Paternal stress in mice given to offspring via RNA packed... by nitrogen on Monday October 26, 2015 @12:32PM (#10452468)
No, this doesn't permanently alter the DNA sequence.
Re:Paternal stress in mice given to offspring via RNA packed... by TeMPOraL on Monday October 26, 2015 @02:44PM (#10453488)
Doesn't matter. It's the "reflections on trusting trust" kind of thing - we, our parents, grandparents, etc. form a chain; some runtime modifications to replication mechanism could propagate forward indefinitely, without changing the DNA in the process.
Re:Paternal stress in mice given to offspring via RNA packed... by iamcurious on Monday October 26, 2015 @02:58PM (#10453588)
Nice insight. To save a few clicks to those remembering this classic (or reading for the first time!):

https://www.ece.cmu.edu/~ganger/712.fall02/papers/p761-thomp...

Re:Paternal stress in mice given to offspring via RNA packed... by shiven on Monday October 26, 2015 @01:11PM (#10452758)
But, it is like commenting out regions in code. You are factually right, in that there is no editing of the DNA sequence i.e. no mutations. But this phenomenon exerts a similar end effect.
Re:Paternal stress in mice given to offspring via RNA packed... by AnimalMuppet on Monday October 26, 2015 @01:27PM (#10452850)
Not "end", exactly - at least, not if you look past N generations.

The question is, how many generations does it take for this to wear off? Or is it "good until cancelled"?