# experiences transmitted through DNA



## Sarah Platts (Jan 12, 2010)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...dc97f2-5e8e-11e3-bc56-c6ca94801fac_story.html

Although they used mice, it can explain a lot about some genetic lines.


----------



## Joby Becker (Dec 13, 2009)

what about dogs that poop in bushes?


----------



## Christopher Jones (Feb 17, 2009)

Its a very interesting topic. A friend of mine is a genercist (sp?) and he told me about it. Also said that it is the reason that the same stud dog will produce different types of pups when he is 2 years of age than he will at 9 years of age.


----------



## Joby Becker (Dec 13, 2009)

please disregard my earlier contribution to this thread, I had the wrong thread..


----------



## Bob Scott (Mar 30, 2006)

I've always been a big believer in what is now called "single event learning". Learning something from one tramatic or highly eventful experience. This would add another interesting aspect to that.


----------



## Catherine Gervin (Mar 12, 2012)

Christopher Jones said:


> Its a very interesting topic. A friend of mine is a genercist (sp?) and he told me about it. Also said that it is the reason that the same stud dog will produce different types of pups when he is 2 years of age than he will at 9 years of age.


is it really so that experiences alter our DNA?


----------



## Rob Kringel (Aug 2, 2011)

Sarah Platts said:


> http://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...dc97f2-5e8e-11e3-bc56-c6ca94801fac_story.html
> 
> Although they used mice, it can explain a lot about some genetic lines.


All though I have no scientific reason to believe this, I think that animals sort of have a collective memory passed down from their ancestors. Maybe it is where some of their natural instincts come from.


----------



## Daniel Lybbert (Nov 23, 2010)

A guy told me that he trained his dog on accelerants while she was pregnant and the pups came out sniffing for it. Not sure if its true. I would imagine all of this could be. Its called evolution


----------



## Terrasita Cuffie (Jun 8, 2008)

Daniel Lybbert said:


> A guy told me that he trained his dog on accelerants while she was pregnant and the pups came out sniffing for it. Not sure if its true. I would imagine all of this could be. Its called evolution



Easy to experiment with. Makes me think of how Jim Delbridge selects his puppies. If the mother was worked on odor while pregnant, how many of the pups have an attraction to that odor?

T


----------



## Matt Vandart (Nov 28, 2012)

I think it is fairly obvious really or how would any species survive. If a prey animal wasn't immediately scared or at least wary of a predator, the species wouldn't last long eh. There's not many second chances in the wild.


----------



## rick smith (Dec 31, 2010)

re: "If a prey animal wasn't immediately scared or at least wary of a predator, the species wouldn't last long eh."

that statement is true but it doesn't therefore mean an animal learns to be wary of predators thru DNA.
- it doesn't prove cause and effect because we don't know how or if behavior is part of the composition of dna

case in point i saw :
leopard kills momma monkey. during the attack and kill, the baby has been hanging on to mom. while leopard starts feeding on dead momma, baby comes drops off her and is a foot or so away from the leopard and its dead momma.
- according to your correlation baby should immediately GTF outa there before leopard kills it too 
- but neither the leopard kills baby nor does the baby run off. instead, after momma is done, the leopard takes care of monkey like it was her own baby and baby treats leopard like his new momma until it eventually starves 

also a reason why most predators need to be shown how to kill even tho they might have some basis of prey drive. many will chase moving objects (like momma's tail), but they don't complete the behavior. which means learning still plays a huge part in evolution of behaviors that we might like to think are dna based and should be manifested right out of the box. certainly holds true for animals (like canines) that we have already domesticated.
- my guess is we will never be able to "breed" EDD's and PSD's, etc

still an interesting study and i hope more are done in this subject area. like doing it with clones to see how behaviors match up. which might also be a challenge since it is hard to identify and test behavior without influencing and modifying what you are testing 

but this seems more suited to animal population like bees and ants, who have specific behaviors imprinted that never seem to be able to be modified thru learning.

sorry for the rambling, but a much more interesting area to me than magnetic orientation of pooping and peeing


----------



## Catherine Gervin (Mar 12, 2012)

yep, i don't know how much nature vs. nurture can be foretold, and instinct is certainly not the same as the genetic modifications made by parental experiences, per se. instinct is older, is inherent, is expressed in mostly all members of a species (?) and is the naturally given basis for the animal upon which experience and education is built. just because i listened to punk rock and hardcore during my kitchen work shifts during my entire pregnancy doesn't mean my daughter likes that music and likes to cook because of it. i rather believe it is her exposure throughout her development after leaving the womb which has drawn her to enjoy those things. 
now, biological triggers like odor and tastes while in utero...maybe those
seem more plausible as having lasting influence?


----------



## Matt Vandart (Nov 28, 2012)

rick smith said:


> re: "If a prey animal wasn't immediately scared or at least wary of a predator, the species wouldn't last long eh."
> 
> *that statement is true but it doesn't therefore mean an animal learns to be wary of predators thru DNA.*
> - it doesn't prove cause and effect because we don't know how or if behavior is part of the composition of dna
> ...


Yes it does, I have seen another similar study which was exactly to determine this. They removed the fear as part of the study. If I can find it again I will post it.


----------



## Catherine Gervin (Mar 12, 2012)

there is this neat book called "The Better To Eat You With" about fear in the animal kingdom, mostly studies done on moose, but it doesn't seem to suggest more than fear being instinctual AND learned, i.e. animals who have never seen/heard an African lion will stop eating and look around nervously but not flee the area because of African lion recordings being played. those same animals--who have not seen a wolf in a hundred years because humans wiped them out in that area--will still run from wolf recordings, that the fear runs deep enough to leave some sort of lingering response.


----------



## Joby Becker (Dec 13, 2009)

fascinating topic..
although we now have 2...

basic genetic inheritance...

and also altering of the genetic code in an individual that will influence that inheritance on future generations.


----------



## Haz Othman (Mar 25, 2013)

So how does this equate to say a young stud thats an IPO prodigy as opposed to the same dog 10 years down the road with a pile of titles and accomplishments. Will the pups be stronger when produced by the aged stud or young stud. 
Lets assume that there were no awful trauma's in his life, but the older dog is just more experienced.


----------



## Catherine Gervin (Mar 12, 2012)

race horses born from a mare in her youth are allegedly better performers/stronger foals than those born to the same mare in a more advanced age...not that dogs are horses...


----------



## Sarah Platts (Jan 12, 2010)

I know with humans, the risk of birth defects dramatically increase after age 35 *IF* the mom is a first timer. If the woman has had a child before the risk is still there but somewhat reduced but it depends on the physical age of the mom - since the body has done it before, it remembers how to do it again. And as age gets on, even if you're having kids, the system ages and breaks down again causing a rise to birth defects or chromosone issues.

What I found interesting in the study what how the scent receptors were genetically increased in subsequent generations and the root scent memory was established even though that generation hadn't been exposed to an actual real-time, physical training regimine.


----------

