The Genius in All of Us: New Insights Into Genetics, Talent, and IQ (52 page)

“In 2005, Madrid biologist Manel Esteller and colleagues reported finding significant epigenetic differences in a whopping thirty-five percent of identical twin sets. ‘These findings help show how environmental factors can change one’s gene expression and susceptibility to disease,’ said Esteller.” (Choi, “How Epigenetics Affects Twins”; see also Pray, “Epigenetics,” pp. 1, 4.)

    
They observed that their batch of genetically identical mice were turning up with a range of different fur colors
:
Morgan, Sutherland, Martin, and Whitelaw, “Epigenetic inheritance at the agouti locus in the mouse,” pp. 314–18.

    
A pregnant yellow mouse eating a diet rich in folic acid or soy milk would be prone to experience an epigenetic mutation producing brown-fur offspring, and even with the pups returning to a normal diet, that brown fur would be passed to future generations
.

Morgan and Whitelaw write:

Changes to the dam’s diet during pregnancy can alter the proportion of yellow mice within a litter. For example, when the dam’s diet is supplemented with methyl donors, including betaine, methionine, and folic acid, there is a shift in the colour of their offspring away from yellow and towards agouti. Similar effects have been observed following the feeding of the dams with genistein, which is found in soy milk. (Morgan and Whitelaw, “The case for transgenerational epigenetic inheritance in humans,” pp. 394–95.)

    
exposure to a pesticide in one generation of rats spurred an epigenetic change
:
Watters, “DNA Is Not Destiny.”

    
age-related epigenetic changes in human males
:
Malaspina et al., “Paternal age and intelligence,” pp. 117–25.

    
nutritional deficiencies and cigarette smoking in one generation of humans had effects across several generations
:
Watters, “DNA Is Not Destiny.”

    
link between inherited epigenetic changes and human colon cancer
:
Hitchins et al., “Inheritance of a cancer-associated MLH1 germ-line epimutation,” pp. 697–705.

    
“Epigenetics is proving we have some responsibility for the integrity of our genome,” says the Director of Epigenetics and Imprinting at Duke University, Randy Jirtle
:
Watters, “DNA Is Not Destiny.”

    
“Information is transferred from one generation to the next by many interacting inheritance systems
”:
Jablonka and Lamb,
Evolution in Four Dimensions
, p. 319.

    
New animal research in the February 4 [2009] issue of
The Journal of Neuroscience
shows that a stimulating environment improved the memory of young mice with a memory-impairing genetic defect and also improved the memory of their eventual offspring
:
Society for Neuroscience, “Mother’s Experience Impacts Offspring’s Memory”; the original article cited is Arai, Li, Hartley, and Feig, “Transgenerational rescue of a genetic defect in long-term potentiation and memory formation by juvenile enrichment,” pp. 1496–1502.

    
“People used to think that once your epigenetic code was laid down in early development, that was it for life,” says McGill University epigenetics pioneer Moshe Szyf
:
Watters, “DNA Is Not Destiny.”

EPILOGUE: TED WILLIAMS FIELD

    
His tiny boyhood home at 4121 Utah Street still stands
.

http://bit.ly/9Bmml
.

    
Two short blocks away, his old practice baseball field is still there too
.

http://bit.ly/yUGZs
.

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