<story><title>The Famine Ended 70 Years Ago, but Dutch Genes Still Bear Scars</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/31/science/dutch-famine-genes.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>rystsov</author><text>It would be interesting to repeat the research in St.Petersburg, the siege during the WW2 lasted more than 2 year and there were 642,000 casualties among civilians.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Siege_of_Leningrad&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Siege_of_Leningrad&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>The Famine Ended 70 Years Ago, but Dutch Genes Still Bear Scars</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/31/science/dutch-famine-genes.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>DoreenMichele</author><text>It looks like fairly solid science:&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Finally, the researchers merged the results — and found a few methyl groups that were linked both to the famine and to health conditions later in life. “We were able to connect the three dots,” said Dr. Lumey...&lt;p&gt;And the Dutch famine probably led to many miscarriages and early deaths. It’s possible that the survivors had some genetic variant that made them resilient and gave them a distinctive epigenetic profile not captured in this study.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I had never heard of this famine. I read the article and found myself wondering how this impacts the collective subconscious and the culture as a whole. Probably not in a good way. (That is &lt;i&gt;not&lt;/i&gt; a criticism of the Dutch. Please read that compassionately.)&lt;p&gt;I wish I knew what to do to promote food security in the world. It seems like food security is some fundamental aspect of peace and just making sure people get fed well (both enough and healthily) is one of the best ways to avert all kinds of problems.</text></comment>