Epigenetics
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New research suggests violent or traumatic experiences in childhood can accelerate biological signs of aging. Early puberty, rapid cellular aging, and structural brain changes could all be linked to violent childhood trauma, but not poverty or neglect.
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Geneticists at Penn State University have manipulated the expression of one gene in a plant that makes them more resilient to environmental change – and found that this is passed down to future generations.
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The difference between biological age and chronological age, as shown on our birth certificates, can reveal health problems associated with premature aging, and now scientists have devised a tool to study it in children for the first time.
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ScienceWe know baby birds communicate, often loudly, and mostly about food, but a new study suggests they can also communicate with each other while still in the egg. This method of communication influences the behavioral and physiological traits of newly-hatched chicks from the same clutch of eggs.
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It’s basic biology that physical traits are passed from parent to offspring, but what about behaviors? Biologists have shown that in worms, learned behaviors can be passed down as many as four generations, with younger worms instinctively avoiding bacteria they’ve never encountered themselves.
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ScienceImagine a tiny microbe living inside you with the power to control the activity of your DNA. Scientists are increasingly discovering how much control our gut bacteria may actually have over us with a study describing how bacteria can secrete a molecule that literally turns genes off or on.
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ScienceStriking new research from scientists at the University of British Columbia and Harvard University is suggesting that adults who were victims of abuse as children may carry an imprint of that trauma in regions of their DNA.
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A number of observational studies have suggested that sleep loss or disrupted circadian rhythms are associated with obesity, diabetes and other dysfunctional metabolic conditions. A study is now offering evidence that helps explain how tissue-level molecular changes are brought on by sleep loss.
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The way genes are expressed can be changed by environmental or lifestyle factors and these changes may be inherited from parents. A new study has found that male mice who spend time in cold environments may pass down this “experience” to their kids, in the form of higher levels of warming brown fat.
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ScienceAs the science of epigenetics begins to explain exactly how our gene activity can be modulated by external environmental factors, a great debate brews - just how heritable are these epigenetic markers? Are the epigenetic results of stress and a bad diet in your life transferred to your children?