How Epigenetic Information Could Be Inherited
Epigenetics is a nascent, exciting field and due to its broad scope, it is used to rationalize the 'it might be so' potential of the mundane (evolutionary psychology) to the silly (social psychology) but some new research reveals a potential way for how parents' experiences could be passed to their offspring's genes. Epigenetics is a system that turns our genes on and off. The process works by chemical tags, known as epigenetic marks, attaching to DNA and telling a cell to either use or ignore a particular gene. The most common epigenetic mark is a methyl group. When these groups fasten to DNA through a process called methylation they block the attachment of proteins which normally turn the genes on. As a result, the gene is turned off. read more