Few ideas in modern biology have captured the public imagination quite like epigenetics. The promise is seductive: chemical ...

Not everything inside us is, strictly speaking, us. The closer we look at the genome, the more we appreciate the role of small RNAs in what we call epigenetic inheritance. That's when traits get ...

Scientists have long known that the DNA code in genes is not the only way to pass genetic traits from parents to offspring. "Epigenetic" marks—chemical modifications to DNA that don't change the DNA ...

Evidence is mounting that epigenetic marks on DNA can influence future generations in a variety of ways. But how such phenomena might affect large-scale evolutionary processes is hotly debated. The ...

A team of genetic engineers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, working with a colleague from Universidad Católica San Antonio de Murcia, has demonstrated transgenerational epigenetic ...

The earliest studies of genetic inheritance were very straightforward - Gregor Mendel documented the passage of certain easily observable traits as they passed down through generations of pea plants.

From the color of our eyes to our odds of developing cancer, we’re all shaped by the genetic legacy of our ancestors. But a new study in mice provides the clearest evidence yet that acquired traits ...

A research team led by Professor Yuanliang ZHAI at the School of Biological Sciences, The University of Hong Kong (HKU) collaborating with Professor Ning GAO and Professor Qing LI from Peking ...

Gametes can transmit not only genetic but also epigenetic information to the next generation. Such epigenetic inheritance can occur via several mechanisms, including DNA methylation, chromatin ...

Serge McGraw is in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Montreal, Quebec H3C 3J7, Canada, and in the CHU Sainte-Justine Research Centre, Montreal. Sarah ...

When we think about genetic inheritance, we usually leap to DNA, the four-letter code containing the instructions for building a living organism. Scientists know that DNA encodes everything from hair ...