TackleAction!

via Professor Riffs

Here's an article that explores research into a dad's role in the genetic problems of their children.

An interesting read, though it took a few times through... but i thought i'd share some interesting points.

First off, as men get older or get exposed to certain conditions their sperm is affected. Older men are more likely to have kids with down syndrome and schizophrenia. Exposure to solvents can lead to other birth problems.

The common perception was that since every 74 days men get a new batch of sperm, the genetic slate was wiped clean. Yet as i look back at my last 74 days - that's a none-too-clean slate (full of alcohol and "hmm this stuff has ether in it... smells kinda.. oh yeah... that's the stuff"). So from this article i've decided that i'm only going to attempt to procreate after spending 74 days in a bubble.

Next Point - Certain traits can emerge and pass from generation to generation without genetic changes. For instance they put some male rats on a crack binge and then their children were born stupid. Apparently there are certain accessory chemicals (2 enzymes in this case, that have to do with expression/repression of genes) that were adversely affected. And surprisingly, the dumb kids also had dumb children, though they said that this dumbness faded away in a few generations. Here's what that research most certainly did not look like:


I came up with a little home-building analogy to help understand this. When building a house (procreating) you send over plans (DNA) and a team of contractors (those accessory chemicals). One set of contractors might not execute the plan as well as another. And if you happened to have a drunk contractor building your bathroom, you can understand how a sink could be installed upside down.

Yet another reason for me to hate American Idol. It seems to me that this franchise does as much to serve "music" as MTV has.

"My fans were like, ‘Wait a minute! That’s Chris Cornell’s moment."

Maybe Cornell can audition next year.