Why we have to teleport disbelief

• 12 January 2011, New Scientist
• Magazine issue 2795.

AS THE old saying goes, it's good to have an open mind but not so open that your brains fall out. This week we report claims about the way that DNA behaves that are so astonishing that many minds have already snapped shut.

The experiments (see "Scorn over claim of teleported DNA") make three claims that will stretch most people's credulity: under certain conditions, DNA can project copies of itself onto electromagnetic waves; these same waves can be picked up by pure water and, through quantum effects, create a "nanostructure" in the shape of the original DNA; and if enzymes which replicate DNA are present in a "receiving" solution, they can recreate the original DNA from the teleported "nanostructure", as if DNA was really there.

This scenario inevitably conjures up echoes of the "water memory" experiments in 1988 by the late Jacques Benveniste (New Scientist, 14 July 1988, p 39). Back then, Benveniste reported that antibodies could leave a ghostly "memory" in water that made the water behave as if the antibodies were still there, even in solutions so dilute that no antibody molecules were left. Eventually, his findings were dismissed, as was he.

The main researcher behind the new DNA experiments is a recent Nobel prizewinner, Luc Montagnier. But science should be no respecter of persons, and the researchers we contacted for comment rightly said his results should be ignored unless and until they have been repeated by independent groups. Nobel laureates are not immune from eccentric beliefs. Others believe in telepathy, have communed with fluorescent raccoons, and championed vitamin C as a cure for cancer.

There is also, not surprisingly, suspicion that Montagnier has been misled by contamination - a problem that has so far stymied the hunt for Jurassic DNA and for traces of life in Martian meteorites. Many other experiments have been wrecked by contamination with "impostor" cells.

Given such reasons for doubt, and the hard-to-believe explanations being put forward to account for the claimed effects, should we be reporting Montagnier's work at all? We decided to go ahead because any bona fide experimental result is worthy of scrutiny, and the claims are nothing if not interesting. What's more, the latest paper follows earlier work by Montagnier. Given the remarkable implications of the claims and the relative simplicity of the experiments, other groups will almost certainly take a look and attempt to repeat Montagnier's results. As one researcher told us: "Twenty labs could do this within three months, so we'll soon know whether it's real."

Like many of the researchers we contacted for comment, we won't believe it till someone repeats it. But we do think they should try. As with cold fusion in 1989, heretical findings with far-reaching implications are sometimes worth investigating, even if the chances that there is something to it all are remote. Back then it was harnessing the power of the sun in a test tube; in this case, our picture of infection might need a fundamental overhaul.

It shouldn't take long to find out whether DNA teleportation is mad or miraculous. Either way, it's important to find out.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20927951.900-why-we-have-to-teleport-disbelief.html

The July 7 bombings and heritability: carrying trauma to the next generation

 

The offspring of male survivors of the July 7 bombings may inherit anxiety and depression.

By Michael Stewart 10:09AM GMT 23 Nov 2010, The Telegraph

It is often said of a particularly dramatic event – such as the September 11 attacks or the July 7 bombings – that its consequences will "reverberate for generations". It can seem like hyperbole, yet new evidence suggests that traumatic events can affect the genes, and lives, of children as yet unborn. Take the July 7 London bombings. As the harrowing evidence continues to emerge, the psychological impact on the survivors has been all too clear.

As many as 30 per cent of those directly caught up in the atrocities have gone on to develop full post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This is in line with similar incidents: after the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, 41 per cent of survivors were diagnosed with PTSD after six months, and 26 per cent were still suffering after seven years. Among soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, the British Armed Forces reckon that 10 per cent develop PTSD. However, an American study gave a figure as high as 30 per cent.

Yet new evidence suggests that the trauma is not just psychological, but biological and even heritable. By altering the chemical mechanisms regulating gene expression, these modifications may become embedded in the male germ line, and can be passed down to the victim's children.

This idea is deeply controversial, not least because it seems to cast doubt on one of the key principles of modern evolutionary theory. The doctrine of natural selection holds that it is our DNA alone that is passed down to our children – and that this remains unaffected by our actual experiences.

Conventional biologists groan with horror at the spectre of the 18th-century French biologist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck rising from the grave.His theory – that characteristics acquired during a creature's lifetime can be passed on to its offspring – is intuitively appealing, but it is rank heresy.

According to the scientific orthodoxy, our only genetic inheritance from our parents is our DNA. Yet this, it now appears, is not entirely the case. Embedded within the DNA sequence are epigenetic regulators, chemical marks that control which genes are expressed and which are not. This is a crucial function, given that every cell in our bodies contains our entire lexicon of DNA. It is the regulators that selectively silence some genes so that particular cells become, say, skin or brain cells, and stay like that when they divide.

The heretical proposition here is that these epigenetic marks can be transmitted along with the DNA. It is the result of intensive research into how these mechanisms work. The best understood is DNA methylation, in which methyl molecules latch on to some areas of the DNA strand and act as switches that render a gene active or inactive.

Too much or too little methylation, and a host of problems occur, from fragile X syndrome to a variety of cancers. The latest findings, however, indicate that psychological conditions, such as trauma and stress, also leave an epigenetic mark. Professor David Sweatt and his colleagues at the University of Alabama have found that maltreating rat pups for just one week is enough to trigger epigenetic changes that deactivate the gene for a protein important in memory formation and emotional balance. This same agent – brain-derived neurotrophic factor – is often abnormally low in schizophrenics and those with bipolar disorder.

In a similar experiment, Professor Eric Richards at Washington University, St Louis, showed that the way rats are nurtured affects the methylation of a crucial receptor in the hippocampus. After a positive nurturing experience, the appropriate gene gets turned on at a vital early stage; after a bad one, the gene remains unused. The same is found in humans. A study of women in Holland who were pregnant during a prolonged famine after the Second World War found that their daughters had twice the normal risk of developing schizophrenia. Again, the causes were epigenetic, the result of changes in the expression of a gene linked with embryonic growth.

But can these effects be inherited? Can nurture in one generation affect nature in the next? It's becoming increasingly clear that the answer is yes. Take Holocaust survivors, for example. A high proportion show abnormally low levels of the hormone cortisol, a deficit of which is associated with PTSD.

What is surprising, though, is that their offspring have equally abnormal levels – and this has been shown to be a biological trait, rather than an effect of the parent-child relationship.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/evolution/8153276/The-July-7-bombings-and-heritability-carrying-trauma-to-the-next-generation.html