

Extreme stress has effect on DNA - cwan
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18720-close-call-with-death-leaves-its-mark-on-dna.html

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dnsworks
The tiny sci-fi geek in me reads this and is thinking, "aw yeah! Just like the
later Dune books!"

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setori88
Of course it does! All our experiences have an effect on our DNA, how else
does evolution happen!?

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David
The point of the article is that they've discovered a concrete physical link
between environment and DNA. We knew it happened, but now we have an instance.
It's a pretty big step.

Aside: Evolution works by natural selection across generations - the ones with
the good genes live, bad genes lose. An individual's genes don't need to
change for the process to take place. Of course, random mutations in DNA are a
big part of what cause the variation that results in good and bad genes, so
yes, sometimes changes happen within an individual. But those are random
changes, whereas this is a response to the immediate environment.

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setori88
mate, one can turn genes on and off simply by changing ones diet

