According to Physorg.com, this study on epigenetic inheritance in chickens "shake[s] Darwin's foundation". Who knew inheritance in a flightless bird could induce an earthquake in northern Australia? That's not what they're referring to? They're not claiming that a neo-Lamarckian process could produce seismic activity?
For everyone running around like a chicken with its head cut off (where's my damn rim-shot?), this result is more of a shot at Mendel than Darwin. And it's not all that surprising. Don't get me wrong, it's cool to see the inheritance of acquired characteristics (unless Reed comes along and shows it to be bunk), but this doesn't refute Darwin -- whatever the fuck that means.
More like this
Dominant Meerkats Render Rivals Infertile:
A list of reviews of Nicholas Wade’s book “A Troublesome Inheritance,” mainly by anthropologists and others who have investigated issues surrounding the concept of “race” in humans.
Here is an interesting discussion of a recent paper on the operational and theoretical definitions of "epigenetics".
Over at Discovering Biology in a Digital World, Sandy thanks me for, "unintentionally starting a public teaching journal." That was a very nice way to describe what's been
*amused*
Every gene involved in this 'shakeup of Darwin' evolved by ordinary means. Histone deacetylase, DNA methylase, etc etc etc.
Its not magic.
Epigenetics is an old phenomenon-- like siRNA. Even viruses code for proteins that induce epigenetic modifications.
It might be a case of direct epigenetic inheritance, but as the authors note, it might also be due to the egg environment - the avian equivalent of uterine effects in mammals.