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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">Dear
Howard,<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"
/><o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"> <o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">Eschel is right. This
is exciting stuff, especially if the RNA hypothesis holds. However, there is
something in mammals that relates to reverting to the grand-parental genetic
expression, or great- great parental genetic expression , or great- great- great
parental genetic expression - and <STRONG><U><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">not</SPAN></U></STRONG> to the parental one! And we
have no clue about the mysterious mechanism. The phenomenon was dubbed - not
surprisingly - the "grand parent effect". It showed that he adaptive expression
of genes in individuals was not that to their immediate environment, but to that
of their grand or great-grand or great-great ..etc. parents. How is it possible
that the ova and sperm retain the environmental memory of up to four generations
past? Or is it something about the phenotype incubating in gestation its progeny
that affect it? We do not know! The phenomenon was first discovered in the late
1930's by an exceedingly gifted amateur biologist, though chemist by training,
when he was experimenting with red deer, trying to increase trophy size. Quite
unexpectedly, the deer did not respond fully to the luxury food he offered,
rather they responded with increases in body and antler size stepwise, each
generation being larger in size than the preceding one - for five generations!
About 30 years later it was re-discovered in mice and rats, showing that the
nutrition experienced by grand parents and earlier generation still affected the
phenotype of the now-generation. In short, genetic expression was based on
phenotypic experiences and was stored for several generations, and this
multi-generational gene-environment communication affected the offspring.
</SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"></SPAN> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">Now, there is a
wonderfully logical - <STRONG><U>adaptive </U></STRONG>- explanation for
this. Remember the <STRONG><U><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">maintenance -
dispersal phenotype axis</SPAN></U></STRONG>? (or, if you prefer paedomorph -
hypermorph, efficiency - luxury etc). The norm in populations is
maintenance conditions that is of hunger, shortages, severe intra- and
inter-specific competition for resources etc., to which the maintenance,
paedomorph or efficiency phenotype is closely and effectively adapted. However,
nature's ecological vagaries are such that now and a gain a year or two of
abundance and luxury comes along. An individual conceived then - clearly - must
<STRONG><U><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">not</SPAN></U></STRONG> be a
dispersal, hypermorph or luxury phenotype because it would be woefully
maladaptive under the regular conditions of shortages and severe competition for
resources. The adaptive thing to do is to wait and see and alter offspring
towards dispersal, hypermorph or luxury phenotypes only if luxury conditions
continue to prevail. That, however, is the signal for the very rare -
excruciatingly rare, but supremely important - case of vacant habitat
being available where the dispersal phenotype is highly adaptive to spread the
parental genomes! That's all in Chapter six of my 1978 <I
style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Lifestrategies </I>.. book entitled "<U>How
Genes Communicate with the Environment - the Biology of
Inequality</U>".<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"> <o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">Coming back to humans:
it is possible that the phenomenon of <STRONG><U><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">secular growth</SPAN></U></STRONG>, in which the
offspring generations over a long time span exceed the parent generation in
size, is part and parcel of this gene-environment communication, with old
environmental information stored for influencing the next generations ontogeny.
Secular growth can be predicted to come to a halt when we have reached, on
average, the body mass, size and development of our Upper Paleolithic Ice Age
ancestors. That is, it will stop when men average a bit over six feet in height
(and brain size exceeds our by about 20%) - and we are some time off from that!
Five- eight, so I understand, is the height of men currently in
</SPAN><?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns =
"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /><st1:place><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">North
America</SPAN></st1:place><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Secular growth has been going on since
the middle of the 19<SUP>th</SUP> century, the nadir having been reached during
the preceding industrial revolution. As stated befoer, there is no clue as to
mechanism!</SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"></SPAN> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">Sincerely.</SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"></SPAN> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">Val Geist</SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">Professor Emeritus of
Environmental Science<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"> <o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P></DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=HowlBloom@aol.com
href="mailto:HowlBloom@aol.com">HowlBloom@aol.com</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A title=paleopsych@paleopsych.org
href="mailto:paleopsych@paleopsych.org">paleopsych@paleopsych.org</A> ; <A
title=kurakin1970@yandex.ru
href="mailto:kurakin1970@yandex.ru">kurakin1970@yandex.ru</A> ; <A
title=ursus@earthlink.net
href="mailto:ursus@earthlink.net">ursus@earthlink.net</A> ; <A
title=paul.werbos@verizon.net
href="mailto:paul.werbos@verizon.net">paul.werbos@verizon.net</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Sunday, March 27, 2005 10:48
PM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> [Paleopsych] From Eshel--A
Glitch in Genetic-centrism</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV><FONT id=role_document face=Arial color=#000000 size=2>
<DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV><!--StartFragment --> <A
href="http://deinococcus.allbio.org/">Deinococcus
<B>radiodurans</B></A> is able to withstand the shattering and spattering
force of radioactivity by keeping many apparently super-condensed backup
copies of its genome, then rebuilding whatever genomic sequences that have
been destroyed.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>If a genome is the most economical summation of a species past possible,
how can it be condensed into a backup copy? Is there, as Joel Isaacson
suggest, an Ur pattern, an implicit pattern from which a mashed gene can be
re-extracted? Does the deciphering of an ancient pattern, an implicit
pattern, an Ur-pattern, change as the context that extracts it changes?</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Is the context of the still-unfazed genome, of the cytoplasm, of the cell
membrane, and of the signals coming from neighboring and distant
cells an extractor capable of re-deducing the implicit healthy gene
when a mutated gene has gone off-track?</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Can evolution take a step back to retrace its earlier moves?</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Is the radiodurans backup mechanism an after-the-fact condensation of the
genome--a symbolic representation of the genome? Or is it a remnant of
something that preceded the genome?</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Eshel, you speak of RNA as the possible backup mechanism. RNA
is the evolutionary precursor of DNA if the RNA-world hypothesis is
true. Do you think that what was once derived from RNA can be derived
again? </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Is this pattern a sort of ontogeny recapitulating phylogeny?</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>And if the complexities and intricate forms and functions of
the present have been pulled from the implications of the past, what even
more elaborate futures will be extracted from the implications of today?
Howard</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>In a message dated 3/24/2005 10:07:42 A.M. Pacific Standard Time,
eshel@physics.ucsd.edu writes:</DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: blue 2px solid"><FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000 size=2>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Hi, Interestiing news, Eshel</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I sent yesterday the message below to several
people in the Weizmann following a paper in Nature that I think is a most
important discovery. personaly I feel very good as it supports my long
objection to the current Neo-darwinian paradigm. It also indicates that the
community in biology is now finally open to revolutionary ideas related to
evolution. </FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2>These discoveries might also
ilustrate one example of organisms learning not through the DNA
sequence.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>{Attached is a new paper that appear in Nature.
Being myself against the central paradigm I find the discoveries
potentially a mark of a new era. I might be dramatizing but may be not. I am
quite surprised and pleased that Nature let them publish the paper and if
you note the dates within 6 weeks from receiving it. Note also the possible
connection with microRNA . </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>It will be interesting if the media will
realise the revolutionary aspects or not. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>If they do, it will probably lead to a flood of
serious and "vitalistic" reactions.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>In this regard I also attached a paper entitled
"New biology for a new century"</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I apologize if I am carried away but felt like
sharing with you my excitement about these discoveries. There are many open
questions. The first one is if it is a special mechanism for plants only or
shared by animals as well (it is known that smallRNA have different
mechanisms in plant).</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Eshel</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Eshel Ben-Jacob.
<BR>
Home Page: <A title=http://star.tau.ac.il/~eshel/
href="http://star.tau.ac.il/~eshel/">http://star.tau.ac.il/~eshel/</A><BR>Professor
of Physics<BR>The Maguy-Glass
Professor
<BR>in Physics of Complex Systems <BR><A
title=mailto:eshel@tamar.tau.ac.il
href="mailto:eshel@tamar.tau.ac.il">eshel@tamar.tau.ac.il</A>
<A title=mailto:ebenjacob@ucsd.edu
href="mailto:ebenjacob@ucsd.edu">ebenjacob@ucsd.edu</A>
</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Former President of the Israel Physical Society
(IPS)<BR>Head the scientific board of PhysicaPlus <A
title=http://physicaplus.org.il/
href="http://physicaplus.org.il/">http://physicaplus.org.il</A><BR>The IPS
Online Bi-lingual
Magazine
</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>School of Physics and
Astronomy
10/2004
-10/2005
<BR>Tel Aviv University, 69978 Tel Aviv,
Israel Center for Theoretical Biological
Physics <BR>Tel 972-3-640 7845/7604 (Fax)
-6425787 University of California San
Diego
<BR>
La Jolla, CA 92093-0354 USA
<BR>
Tel (office) 1-858-534 0524 (Fax) -534
7697<BR> <BR></FONT></DIV></FONT></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV>
<DIV></DIV></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT lang=0 face=Arial size=2 PTSIZE="10"
FAMILY="SANSSERIF">----------<BR>Howard Bloom<BR>Author of The Lucifer
Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of History and Global
Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind From The Big Bang to the 21st
Century<BR>Visiting Scholar-Graduate Psychology Department, New York
University; Core Faculty Member, The Graduate
Institute<BR>www.howardbloom.net<BR>www.bigbangtango.net<BR>Founder:
International Paleopsychology Project; founding board member: Epic of
Evolution Society; founding board member, The Darwin Project; founder: The Big
Bang Tango Media Lab; member: New York Academy of Sciences, American
Association for the Advancement of Science, American Psychological Society,
Academy of Political Science, Human Behavior and Evolution Society,
International Society for Human Ethology; advisory board member:
Youthactivism.org; executive editor -- New Paradigm book series.<BR>For
information on The International Paleopsychology Project, see:
www.paleopsych.org<BR>for two chapters from <BR>The Lucifer Principle: A
Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of History, see
www.howardbloom.net/lucifer<BR>For information on Global Brain: The Evolution
of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century, see
www.howardbloom.net<BR></FONT></DIV></FONT>
<P>
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