Word: bygren
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2010-2019
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...work of Dr. Lars Olov Bygren in epigenetics referenced in your article would seem to nullify one of the icons of Darwinian evolution, Darwin's finches. Darwin noted that the bill length of finches changed depending on environmental conditions. Darwin explained this by natural selection. Other scientists have noticed that the bill lengths of those finches return to normal when conditions return to normal. Sounds like epigenetics and not Darwinian evolution. Darwin skeptics tend to agree that organisms can adapt (or evolve) within certain boundaries, but such organisms do not evolve into new species. Bygren's study of epigenetics would...
...work of Dr. Lars Olov Bygren in epigenetics referenced in your article would seem to nullify one of the icons of Darwinian evolution, Darwin's finches. Darwin noted that the bill length of finches changed depending on environmental conditions. Darwin explained this by natural selection. Other scientists have noticed that the bill lengths of those finches return to normal when conditions return to normal. Sounds like epigenetics and not Darwinian evolution. Darwin skeptics tend to agree that organisms can adapt (or evolve) within certain boundaries, but such organisms do not evolve into new species. Bygren's study of epigenetics would...
Pembrey and Bygren knew they needed to replicate the Overkalix findings, but of course you can't conduct an experiment in which some kids starve and others overeat. (You also wouldn't want to wait 60 years for the results.) By coincidence, Pembrey had access to another incredible trove of genetic information. He had long been on the board of the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC), a unique research project based at the University of Bristol, in England. Founded by Pembrey's friend Jean Golding, an epidemiologist at the university, ALSPAC has followed thousands of young people...
...Pembrey, Bygren and Golding - now all working together - used the data to produce a more groundbreaking paper, the most compelling epigenetic study yet written. Published in 2006 in the European Journal of Human Genetics, it noted that of the 14,024 fathers in the study, 166 said they had started smoking before age 11 - just as their bodies were preparing to enter puberty. Boys are genetically isolated before puberty because they cannot form sperm. (Girls, by contrast, have their eggs from birth.) That makes the period around puberty fertile ground for epigenetic changes: If the environment is going to imprint...
When Pembrey, Bygren and Golding looked at the sons of those 166 early smokers, it turned out that the boys had significantly higher body mass indexes than other boys by age 9. That means the sons of men who smoke in prepuberty will be at higher risk for obesity and other health problems well into adulthood. It's very likely these boys will also have shorter life spans, just as the children of the Overkalix overeaters did. "The coherence between the ALSPAC and Overkalix results in terms of the exposure-sensitive periods and sex specificity supports the hypothesis that there...