Well-Exercised Mice Passed Natural Fitness To Their Male Offspring, But Not Through Dna

Well-Exercised Mice Passed Natural Fitness To Their Male Offspring, But Not Through Dna

Well-Exercised Mice Passed Natural Fitness To Their Male Offspring, But Not Through Dna Reprinted with Permission from World at Large… What if there were a way that didn’t involve CRISPR to give your offspring a natural talent for athletics? Well that’s totally possible as it turns out, because scientists just demonstrated it in mice, and it didn’t even involve so-called “good genes”. It involved a modern and exciting field of genetic biology called epigenetics: a term that refers to adaptations to genetic expression in response to life stressors. Here, the actual nature of the DNA doesn’t change, but adaptations packaged in the similarly important RNA made their way into sperm cells, the embryo, and the offspring. The story of this fascinating innovation begins in Nanjing University, where lead investigator on the study Xin Yin used to notice during his time as an undergraduate that the children of athletes seemed to possess a natural talent for sports. The reproductive biologist didn’t r…