News Category Archive

Hereditary Memories?

3 Replies Jonny Hankins

The BBC has recently been reporting that memories can be carried from one generation to another through genes. We always knew that certain characteristics were passed on, but we had never known if or how memories were transferable.

Well it seems that they are, but what might this actually mean?

On 1 December Nature Neuroscience published a report that you can read the abstract of here although it is extremely technical.

In lay terms the research aimed at understanding how experiential and behavioural traits could be passed on. In the case under discussion they used mice to see if traumatic stress experiences could be seen to influence the next generation.

The experiment went something like this. A mouse is put into an environment that has a particular smell, cherry blossom for example. In that environment and accompanied by the smell the mouse is traumatized in order to produce stress.

The post traumatised mice then produce offspring, and they themselves produce a new generation. The grandchild mouse is exposed to the smell (cherry blossom) and their activity is monitored to see if they behave differently as a reaction to that particular smell, and they do.

Passing it all on

Passing it all on

The mice were “extremely sensitive” to cherry blossom and would avoid the scent, despite never having experienced it in their lives, and changes in brain structure were also found related to the smell.

The report concluded that “the experiences of a parent, even before conceiving, markedly influence both structure and function in the nervous system of subsequent generations”.

I wonder if associations are just negative? My children love the smell of Indian food, my father was raised in India and also loved the food, but he died many years ago and my children never knew him. Do they like the smell because my dad passed a liking of the food through my genes to them?

This is a simple example to question, but what are the implications for society after war? If we think about the Vietnam conflict, or more recently Afghanistan or Iraq for our our US veterans, what have they passed on to their children? Could the post war generation be suffering from a form of Post Traumatic Stress disorder thanks to their parents’ experiences?

And could the memory be more complete in a human brain, possibly being better functioning that that of a mouse?

And think about the implications for the theory of evolution.

The Dangers of Posting Negative Reviews

5 Replies Jonny Hankins

Now here is a story for you.

Just imagine that you buy something over the Internet and it never arrives. It happened to me once with a folding bike, and I lost my money. But at least if you use PayPal you have some chance to get your money back. Oh the benefits of hindsight!

So you buy something from a company over the Internet. The object does not turn up. You call the company, no answer, you write to them repeatedly, send them emails, try all the numbers you can find but nobody responds.

What do you do? You go on a review site and you tell the story. Well that is a dangerous game!

Reviews

Reviews

As this article on CNN explains, in 2008 John Palmer bought his wife Christmas gifts off KlearGear.com. The gifts didn’t arrive and he followed the path described above as many of us would.

More than three years later, Mr Palmer received an e-mail appearing to be from KlearGear.com stating that they would be fined $3,500 if the negative review wasn’t taken down within 72 hours.

So as any threatened person would he tried to have it removed. But the review company couldn’t remove it without entering into arbitration, costing money, so the review remained.

What about freedom of speech? Well you might well ask. When you buy something or have any contracted action with a company you might be signing away your freedom of speech. Yes, fine print.

If you look in the terms of sale and you find something like the following “Your acceptance of this sales contract prohibits you from taking any action that negatively impacts KlearGear.com” as in the sale mentioned above, you waive your rights goodbye.

The company can stipulate how much you are liable for as well. Then you have to pay up or go to court, run up huge legal bills and argue that the clause is not legal.

With Christmas just round the corner, Kwanzaa and birthday presents to shop for, holidays and flights to book and many others, what are we going to do? Do we have time to read 10 pages of contractual terms each time we buy something? Would we understand it anyway?

It looks like another form of cyber-bullying to me.

The FDA Shuts Down Home Genetic Testing Company 23andMe

8 Replies Jonny Hankins

On Monday the US Government FDA forced the main home testing company 23andMe to stop selling its saliva genetics home testing kit. As this is their only product this means that they effectively shut down their operation.

Looking at Genes

Looking at Genes

The problem seems to be that the company is offering testing for gene mutations that may lead to rises in probability of contracting diseases. This is considered a medical test by the FDA, and so they require trials and results in order to see how well the tests work before they license them. 23AndMe have been unable or unwilling to provide such results, so cannot market their device unless they take away all of the medical arguments.

This is the technical reason, but there are serious ethical issues surrounding home genetic testing. The following are just a few of my own ideas:

Without serious research doubt must remain about the quality of the results. The samples are not second tested, and the quality of testing cannot be of the same level as other medical hight cost exams. There have been problems reported due to the small number of people involved in the test groups, as statistics require masses of data that are not yet available.

Are customers qualified to interpret the results? What does a statistical rise in probability actually mean to a person that has never studied statistics or probability? And the results are delivered without any counseling, so if there is bad news the customer is left to process the information alone.

Here just a few examples might demonstrate the difficulty. If I have a 1% chance of contracting problem A, but I have a gene variant that means that I am 70% more likely to contract it, I might be distraught. The reality is that I now have a 1.7% chance, very little difference, but I might try to change my lifestyle, treat my kids differently, get paranoid, have preemptive surgery, who knows how an individual will react without medical advice?

If on the other hand I am negative for a mutation for something I might adopt an equally problematic stance. I don’t have the gene mutation that leads to skin cancer so I can stop worrying and have another hour on the sun bed. Social factors are really the big ones in many cases.

And what about testing your children? How will parents react knowing that their child might be susceptible to certain problems later in life?

Oh and if I discover that I have something hideous, should I tell my brothers? They might carry it and pass it on to their children. How personal is this type of medicine? It is familial, not individual.

The 23andMe problem is a prime example of money ruling. They have operated for 6 years, without regulation and blatantly challenging the FDA and medical profession that they see as holding up progress. As far as I can see this is about as far away from the responsible innovation that I have spent my recent life trying to promote as I would like to see anyone go. I would add though that it is a systemic problem here in the USA, not a personal divisive choice, and it is very different to the European approach underscored by the precautionary principal (with all its critics).

For further reading you will find several of my articles linked through this post on the same subject from last year.

The National Post has a good article too that includes both sides of the argument.