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Comment by VeninVidiaVicii | Hacker News Reader

The epigenome isn't some mystical thing, it's just a manifestation of the environment on cellular function. These kinds of sensationalist articles are exquisitely frustrating as a genomicist.

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You need to give that knowledge time to spread. The vast majority of living adults learned in school that the DNA is fixed and the surrounding stuff is just junk. Eventually everyone will know about epigenetics but how else would you spread the information if not with articles like these.

A few months ago, I spoke to my uncle, who's an endocrinologist at a medical school, and when I told him "Your organs are different because of epigenetics" a lightbulb went off in his head. I think outreach is just doing am awful job of explaining epigenetics. Even his colleagues in genetics hadn't really been able to explain it very succinctly.

Instead, articles are full of explanations like this one, leading you to make outlandish conclusions. Hell, even in one of my community outreach events, a farmer came up to me afterwards and said he doesn't want to grow any crops with methylated DNA.

The article never claims that it's mystical...why do you say it's sensationalist?

How long are epigenetic changes supposed to last? Do changes caused by trauma last longer than slower changes?

Every single specific thing that a differentiated cell does (which are most cells in the organism) are technically due to "epigenetics". Epigenetics just means that there are mechanisms to activate some genes and deactivate others. This is the essential core process in differentiation, as well as in many other processes in the body. It is like asking how long do differences between your skin cells and neurons is supposed to last?

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