Violence alters human genes for generations, researchers discover

Re:Violence alters human genes for generations, researchers ... by rcthompson on Friday February 28, 2025 @01:05PM (#43208553)

Describing a change to DNA methylation "alters" a gene is technically correct in the sense that it is an change to the molecular structure of the DNA that makes up the gene, but is indeed misleading, because without further clarification a majority of people would assume it refers to a change in the gene sequence.

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Re:Violence alters human genes for generations, researchers ... by adamc on Friday February 28, 2025 @01:57PM (#43209039)

But since many of them misunderstand the role of gene sequences, that may be less meaningful than you imply.

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Re:Violence alters human genes for generations, researchers ... by johnisgood on Friday February 28, 2025 @01:46PM (#43208947)

Should it not be "affects" or "influences"?

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Re:Violence alters human genes for generations, researchers ... by rcthompson on Friday February 28, 2025 @02:25PM (#43209304)

DNA methylation means adding one or more methyl groups to the DNA, so technically it is an alteration. But most people would assume that altering a gene specifically means changing the "letters" of the gene sequence that encode the protein, and that's not what DNA methylation does.

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Re:Violence alters human genes for generations, researchers ... by johnisgood on Friday February 28, 2025 @02:27PM (#43209327)

Oh, yeah, I suppose I read "influences behavior" a bit too much.

I read about DNA methylation (well, epigenetics in general) in one book for behavioral epigenetics.

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