In case you weren't worried yet about inadvertently damaging your children's and grandchildren's DNA, scientists in Japan have demonstrated precisely how that might be possible by stressing out some fruit flies.
You might think that once you've contributed sperm or egg to your offspring, its genetic destiny is set: you're free to mess up the kid psychologically or raise it exclusively on gluten-free Cheetos, but you can't do any harm to its DNA. You'd be wrong, though. Scientists have learned that factors in our environment can change our genes and our children's genes--without altering the letters of our DNA. This phenomenon is called epigenetics and it's mostly a mystery.
Some epigenetic effects have been linked to diet; for example, human mothers who diet during pregnancy might predispose their children to be heavier. For this study, scientists looked at the effect of stress on fly embryos. Specifically, they kept the embryos ...
