Offspring can resemble a mother’s previous mate

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in science on (#2T52)
The physical traits of previous sexual partners could be passed on to future children. Telegony was first hypothesized by Aristotle and was a widely held belief in the Middle Ages and up until the 19th century. The theory was discredited by the advent of genetics, but may have some truth to it after all. Scientists at the University of New South Wales discovered that, for fruit flies at least, the size of the young was determined by the size of the first male the mother mated with, rather than the second male that sired the offspring.

"We know that features that run in families are not just influenced by the genes that are passed down from parents to their children. Various non-genetic inheritance mechanisms make it possible for environmental factors to influence characteristics of a child. Our new findings take this to a whole new level - showing a male can also transmit some of his acquired features to offspring sired by other males," says lead author Dr Angela Crean.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/11133203/Could-previous-lovers-influence-appearance-of-future-children.html

Re: Balderdash (Score: 1)

by evilviper@pipedot.org on 2014-10-07 02:46 (#2T5K)

The lead author sounds like a terrible person, purposely conflating insect reproduction with a implied human connection
Was there a specific quote you're referring to? She did specifically say: "But we don't know yet whether this applies to other species."

Don't confuse the study authors for the journalist taking the story whichever direction they prefer. For an extreme example, the Guardian article on the same subject was one big estrogen-fueled rant about the journalist's previous boyfriends...

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/02/baby-looks-like-ex-research
human connection that completely doesn't exist.
Just because a human connection hasn't yet been proven, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. This is just the first study establishing that the effect exists... Humans absolutely are known to be greatly affected by other epigenetic effects, as TFA and tanuki both mention. It may take decades to determine how significantly affected, if at all, humans are.
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