Scientists Find Olfactory "Memory" Passed Between Generations In Mice 118
New submitter Raging Bool writes "The BBC is reporting that acquired phobias or aversions by mice can be passed on to subsequent generations. From the article: 'Experiments showed that a traumatic event could affect the DNA in sperm and alter the brains and behavior of subsequent generations. A Nature Neuroscience study shows mice trained to avoid a smell passed their aversion on to their 'grandchildren.''"
Re:eureka (Score:3, Interesting)
So why are IQ scores getting higher (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect)? The more we use our brain, the smarter our offspring get.
Show me an IQ test that has stayed the same over time -- I think you'll find that as people get better training to score well on IQ tests, IQ tests also shift to be more "fair" to the population in general. I remember administering a "traditional" IQ test from the 50's to someone a few year's back -- they scored abysmally because the test assumed they'd understand concepts and turns of phrase that have completely left our society today. IQ tests used to be very male WASP-centric. Now the same test has a wider population base that it can sample from, making more North Americans score higher than they used to.
(Older IQ tests assumed people had a basic sense of animal husbandry, farm crops [eg the difference between hay and wheat] and other non-urban things. Also, they assumed that a telephone was "dialled" via a rotor. These are just a few of the more obvious examples).
Oh yes, and because IQ tests are supposed to be normalized, a proper IQ test will have the same distribution over a population year-over-year. You can't measure an increase in intelligence with IQ.