<story><title>Memories of positive associations get written onto DNA</title><url>http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/08/memories-of-positive-associations-get-written-onto-dna/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mathattack</author><text>By this argument, culture can be imprinted into DNA too, no?&lt;p&gt;This also implies that it would be much tougher to do a Jurassic Park recreation, because the environment is different.  You can&amp;#x27;t just start from scratch with the DNA.&lt;p&gt;Or am I misinterpreting?</text></item><item><author>JunkDNA</author><text>This is fascinating but unsurprising given all the things that have come out lately with regard to epigenetics. If your mental model of DNA involves some image of a pristine blueprint that is followed with clockwork-like precision in the exact same way by every cell in your body, your model needed updating quite some time ago.&lt;p&gt;I feel that many researchers, even geneticists who should know better, still have not internalized the idea that epigenetics is pretty good evidence that somatic DNA is a read&amp;#x2F;write medium. This leads to sloppy thinking about genetic causes of disease as well as continued persistence of the idea that if we can just collect enough sequences, all genetic causes of disease might be found.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>3am</author><text>You are misinterpreting.  As others have noted, this is DNA in the nuclei of nerve cells, not gametes.  It is not heritable.</text></comment>
<story><title>Memories of positive associations get written onto DNA</title><url>http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/08/memories-of-positive-associations-get-written-onto-dna/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mathattack</author><text>By this argument, culture can be imprinted into DNA too, no?&lt;p&gt;This also implies that it would be much tougher to do a Jurassic Park recreation, because the environment is different.  You can&amp;#x27;t just start from scratch with the DNA.&lt;p&gt;Or am I misinterpreting?</text></item><item><author>JunkDNA</author><text>This is fascinating but unsurprising given all the things that have come out lately with regard to epigenetics. If your mental model of DNA involves some image of a pristine blueprint that is followed with clockwork-like precision in the exact same way by every cell in your body, your model needed updating quite some time ago.&lt;p&gt;I feel that many researchers, even geneticists who should know better, still have not internalized the idea that epigenetics is pretty good evidence that somatic DNA is a read&amp;#x2F;write medium. This leads to sloppy thinking about genetic causes of disease as well as continued persistence of the idea that if we can just collect enough sequences, all genetic causes of disease might be found.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Retric</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s a mistake to think there is only one correct path when talking about DNA.  Often, there is quite a bit of redundancy involved so Jurasic Park dinosaurs may be slightly different than there historic counterparts but that would not prevent them from being sufficiently viable to pass on there DNA.  Because, biology is PASS &amp;#x2F; FAIL not some pursuit of perfection.</text></comment>