Understanding Heredity

Epigenetics: A Turning Point in Our Understanding of Heredity

[1] In a study published in late 2011 in Nature, Stanford University geneticist Anne Brunet and colleagues described a series of experiments that caused nematodes raised under the same environmental conditions to experience dramatically different lifespans. Some individuals were exceptionally long-lived, and their descendants, through three generations, also enjoyed long lives. Clearly, the lon...

Hologynic Heredity.

Sex-linked characters in man are well known; they are all pathological characters, so far as known; they are transmitted according to the same laws as the sex-linked characters in the little fruit-fly (Drosophila) and explained in the same manner by means of the sex chromosome. I propose the name “diagynic heredity” for this kind of heredity, as the sex-linked character is transmitted from male...

Heredity in Ovarian Cystoma

Rethinking heredity, again.

The refutation of 'soft' inheritance and establishment of Mendelian genetics as the exclusive model of heredity is widely portrayed as an iconic success story of scientific progress. Yet, we are witnessing a re-emergence of debate on the role of soft inheritance in heredity and evolution. I argue that this reversal reflects not only the weight of new evidence but also an important conceptual ch...

Marriage and Heredity