My question still remains. Even if the gene isn't altered, but the expression is, which I assume is the important part in determining outward influence the gene has, I wasn't aware anything short of radiation could alter that. If stress can change you at the gene level, or metal state in general, wouldn't we all be able to "fix ourselves" or otherwise change our gene expressions by submitting ourselves to various metal states to invoke the wanted gene response?
TL;DR, I wasn't aware anything regarding genes could change, that's all, and I'm more curious why I keep discovering so many large gaps in things I personally considered life long, common knowledge. My question was almost rhetorical for myself.
Disconcerting, like returning to someone's comment, and it's subtly different from how you remembered (before you knew of the recent editing feature).
Most (all?) scientific ideas are simplifications. e.g. that species are separate. That the relationships between species can be represented by a tree.
Yes, it used to be taught that genes don't change. But there's methylation and telomeres and "gene therapy" is a thing. I agree that changing gene expression sounds like sophistry, since the point of genes is their effect. Sounds like Lamarckism to me.
Everything you've been taught is wrong - in that however thoroughly something is known, there's always more to it.
Yes, your body does something called methylation to alter gene expression, and yes, medicine is trying to use this fact for diagnostics at the moment.
If you experience stress, your body will upregulate expression of cortisol and other hormones. If you remove the stressor, it will downregulate. Chronic stress can break these processes and require medical intervention. This is all (in theory) detectable with methylation analysis of the genome, but it will take a decade to fully flesh the technology out.
It is relatively new discovery. We now understand that DNA strands are usually tightly wrapped around histones. This resembles strings wrapped around beads.
Gene expression is talking about the myriad number of things that causes the DNA strands to relax and unwound from the histone. By exposing that piece of DNA strand the gene can be expressed and the resulting protein is formed. I don’t believe we have a complete understanding yet of what causes genes to be expressed or not expressed. There seem to be multiple factors at play.
My understanding of telomeres is that is primarily a mechanism to prevent cancer. After a cell replicates itself a number of times the telomeres grow shorter and shorter and at a certain point it stops replicating because the assumption is the DNA has now been damaged by environmental factors. Some cells don’t have this mechanism and can replicate infinitely eg skin cells.
Epigenetics is the catch-all term. “Evolution in Four Dimensions” is an interesting if slightly dated book going into many of the ways that the expression of your genetic material can chance who you are.
I think this might be a fun opportunity to accept that things are complicated and to be excited to learn new things. But I always personally knew that gene expressions can change with circumstance: that’s why arctic foxes have winter and summer coats, and why point coated cats have dark fur on the extremities of the body.
TL;DR, I wasn't aware anything regarding genes could change, that's all, and I'm more curious why I keep discovering so many large gaps in things I personally considered life long, common knowledge. My question was almost rhetorical for myself.