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Fathers’ choices may be packaged and passed down in sperm RNA

quantamagazine.org

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Re: Fathers’ choices may be packaged and passed down in sperm RNA

#131

Post by jibal »

AlecSchueler wrote: post #91
jibal wrote: post #68

> “This study shows that paternal exercise can confer benefits — enhanced endurance and metabolic health — to offspring,” So good habits can be good for offspring. > For instance, mouse fathers exposed to nicotine(opens a new tab) sire male pups with livers that are good at disarming not just nicotine but cocaine and other toxins as well. So bad habits can be good for offspring. > “We just don’t have really any under…

If you ignore "good" and "bad" then it's just "traits can be passed through this mechanism" egg seems a lot more reasonable.

But that's not what it says. RNA fragments are entering the ovum and having some sort of effect .... that's quite different from passing traits the way genes on chromosomes do.

Re: Fathers’ choices may be packaged and passed down in sperm RNA

#132

Post by exe34 »

jibal wrote: post #93
exe34 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was a self-deprecating joke which back-fired because nuance is lost on the internet. You got triggered, which is entirely human, but at this point, you're the one who is doubling down. Perhaps it's a good time to disconnect and enjoy some time with your family.

I didn't "down" in the first place, but "no you" is typical of your ilk. Your comment is dishonest denial of your ageist bigotry, an inability to take responsibility for your actions. And I don't take life advice from trolls, bigots, and the like. I won't respond further.

I'm sorry you feel that way.

Re: Fathers’ choices may be packaged and passed down in sperm RNA

#133

Post by whimsicalism »

jibal wrote: post #68

> “This study shows that paternal exercise can confer benefits — enhanced endurance and metabolic health — to offspring,” So good habits can be good for offspring. > For instance, mouse fathers exposed to nicotine(opens a new tab) sire male pups with livers that are good at disarming not just nicotine but cocaine and other toxins as well. So bad habits can be good for offspring. > “We just don’t have really any under…

the section immediately after that you didn’t quote:

> evidence keeps piling up. Most recently, in November 2025, a comprehensive paper (opens a new tab) published in Cell Metabolism traced the downstream molecular effects of a father mouse’s exercise regimen on sperm microRNAs that target genes “critical for mitochondrial function and metabolic control” in a developing embryo. The researchers found many of those same RNAs overexpressed in the sperm of well-exercised human men.

https://www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/fulltext/S1550-4131(25)...

Re: Fathers’ choices may be packaged and passed down in sperm RNA

#134

Post by whimsicalism »

DANmode wrote: post #119
jibal wrote: post #68

> “This study shows that paternal exercise can confer benefits — enhanced endurance and metabolic health — to offspring,” So good habits can be good for offspring. > For instance, mouse fathers exposed to nicotine(opens a new tab) sire male pups with livers that are good at disarming not just nicotine but cocaine and other toxins as well. So bad habits can be good for offspring. > “We just don’t have really any under…

You took a left-turn: Nicotine is on-par with caffeine in isolation. It’s the rest of the crap in smokes and vapes to be concerned with. I was surprised to learn nicotine is used by functional doctors to treat CFS-adjacent conditions, and the mechanisms therein.

nicotine is significantly more harmful than caffeine, although it is definitely way better than the other stuff in tobacco and not a carcinogen.

let’s not get started on the CFS stuff, treatments for functional disorders are often placebo-resembling.

Re: Fathers’ choices may be packaged and passed down in sperm RNA

#135

Post by jibal »

sigmoid10 wrote: post #107
larusso wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. The example with Nicotine intake having a somewhat positive effect on the children feels too wild at the money. Think of all the kids of the 60th and 70th. They must be immune to most toxins ;). Yes I take this example to the extreme. I also feel that this could maybe contradict what we learned from evolution theory. Why would it take so long for a given treat to establish itself. Maybe I mix too much into o…

>I also feel that this could maybe contradict what we learned from evolution theory. It doesn't, but the article doesn't go into this detail, so people unfamiliar with the field wouldn't understand why. The keyword is epigenetics. I.e. how certain genes become activated or deactivated through behaviour and/or environmental influences. But the DNA sequence itself remains unaltered. So no evolution necessary. There are…

Not all epigenetics is regulation of gene expression. The article says "these molecules transmit traits to offspring and that they can regulate embryonic development after fertilization" -- that's from the reporter, but I don't have faith that "transmit traits" is at all accurate--it certainly isn't true in the way that genes express traits. And then they quote an actual epigeneticist saying “We just don’t have really any understanding of how RNAs can do this, and that’s the hand-wavy part”

Re: Fathers’ choices may be packaged and passed down in sperm RNA

#136

Post by jibal »

pcl wrote: post #111
sigmoid10 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I also feel that this could maybe contradict what we learned from evolution theory. It doesn't, but the article doesn't go into this detail, so people unfamiliar with the field wouldn't understand why. The keyword is epigenetics. I.e. how certain genes become activated or deactivated through behaviour and/or environmental influences. But the DNA sequence itself remains unaltered. So no evolution necessary. There are…

> ”They will not persist across many generations though” Why not? Is there some tempering mechanism on epigenetic transfer? I could imagine that some sperm-conferred epigenetic markers could continue down the male descendants unbroken.

Because chromosomes in nuclei reproduce via very sophisticated and highly regulated processes; random epigenetic molecules do not.

Re: Fathers’ choices may be packaged and passed down in sperm RNA

#137

Post by jibal »

DANmode wrote: post #119
jibal wrote: post #68

> “This study shows that paternal exercise can confer benefits — enhanced endurance and metabolic health — to offspring,” So good habits can be good for offspring. > For instance, mouse fathers exposed to nicotine(opens a new tab) sire male pups with livers that are good at disarming not just nicotine but cocaine and other toxins as well. So bad habits can be good for offspring. > “We just don’t have really any under…

You took a left-turn: Nicotine is on-par with caffeine in isolation. It’s the rest of the crap in smokes and vapes to be concerned with. I was surprised to learn nicotine is used by functional doctors to treat CFS-adjacent conditions, and the mechanisms therein.

> You took a left-turn

I certainly didn't; I simply quoted a sentence from the article. (I've noticed that some people have difficulty distinguishing between the person who quotes something and the person being quoted ... it might be a Sally-Anne effect.)

> It’s the rest of the crap in smokes and vapes to be concerned with.

Yes, which makes this article even less reliable.

Re: Fathers’ choices may be packaged and passed down in sperm RNA

#138

Post by jibal »

whimsicalism wrote: post #133
jibal wrote: post #68

> “This study shows that paternal exercise can confer benefits — enhanced endurance and metabolic health — to offspring,” So good habits can be good for offspring. > For instance, mouse fathers exposed to nicotine(opens a new tab) sire male pups with livers that are good at disarming not just nicotine but cocaine and other toxins as well. So bad habits can be good for offspring. > “We just don’t have really any under…

the section immediately after that you didn’t quote: > evidence keeps piling up. Most recently, in November 2025, a comprehensive paper (opens a new tab) published in Cell Metabolism traced the downstream molecular effects of a father mouse’s exercise regimen on sperm microRNAs that target genes “critical for mitochondrial function and metabolic control” in a developing embryo. The researchers found many of those sam…

I and others generally don't quote things that aren't relevant to the point we're making and I'm not keen on the crypt-accusation. I didn't say that there aren't downstream molecular effects--clearly there are. Rather, the article is very unclear about the nature of epigenetics, and the wording about "transmitting traits" is misleading at best and leads to many unwarranted conclusions, as evidenced in the comments here. The statements I quoted are not about transmitting traits. e.g., "paternal exercise" refers to a trait of exercising, taking time to exercise, being motivated to exercise, etc. The "conferred benefit" of "enhanced endurance and metabolic health" is a different trait. If that is the trait being transmitted then that should be the trait being identified in male parents, not "exercise". Similarly, being exposed to nicotine is not the trait of having livers that are good at "disarming" nicotine, cocaine, and a host of other toxins ... and this is an extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary evidence, and the article provides one citation, from 2017.

And as an epigeneticist says in the article, we have no idea how RNA is having the effects its having.

As I said, I'm happy to wait until we have moved beyond this early stage of research before making any radical inferences.

Re: Fathers’ choices may be packaged and passed down in sperm RNA

#139

Post by jibal »

sallveburrpi wrote: post #129
jibal wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Boomers. How can anyone not grasp that? It's as if the insult is like water to fish, so people don't even perceive it.

Is calling someone boomer an insult in itself? I get that saying “boomer ruined the world for all the generations afterwards” is an insult, but the word itself is now considered an insult? Genuinely asking here; the constantly shifting landscape of what one is allowed to say when talking to US Americans is a bit hard for me to navigate and I currently only have online discourse as guidepost (which is like 1000% more…

Your question is disingenuous, as the word "boomer" didn't appear isolated with no context. The statement was "the baby acts like a boomer", which clearly has a pejorative connotation--you yourself recognized this when you asked "Which demographic was casually insulted here? The babies/third children?" ... it's not even possible to think that babies are being insulted without thinking that saying they're like boomers is insulting. As I said, that seems to be an unquestioned assumption.

As I said elsewhere, there is no single way that boomers behave. Boomers are simply people born in the post-war boom, from 1946-1964, and they display a huge range of traits. Virtually all statements referring to boomers collectively that aren't purely statistical are pejorative--ageist bigotry.

> what one is allowed to say

This oft repeated nonsense is bad faith. You're allowed to say whatever you want, and people are allowed to respond.

I've said my piece and won't engage further.

Re: Fathers’ choices may be packaged and passed down in sperm RNA

#140

Post by sejje »

AlecSchueler wrote: post #123
AlecSchueler wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you ignore "good" and "bad" then it's just "traits can be passed through this mechanism" egg seems a lot more reasonable.

s/egg/which/

You don't egg randomly inserted words?
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