Sins of the mothers?

This one will get the wags chatting: environmentally induced changes in gene expression can be passed down *two* generations. It sort of makes sense that a female offspring's eggs would be affected by her in-utero experience, since the eggs are set up so early (and involve so many regulatory factors produced by the mother). Still, surprising in many ways.

I expect this to further complexify the lives of geneticists trying to tease out small risk factors (for weight, disease, etc.), and to give scientific journalists lots of fluff to write about blaming our problems on our forebearers...

(via Rebecca's Pocket)