Environmental factors found to alter gene expression

Lab mice trained to fear a particular smell can transfer the impulse to their unborn sons and grandsons through a mechanism in their sperm, a study reveals.  The research claims to provide evidence for the concept of animals "inheriting" a memory of their ancestors' traumas, and responding as if they had lived the events themselves.  It is the latest find in the study of epigenetics, in which environmental factors are said to cause genes to start behaving differently without any change to their underlying DNA encoding.

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Learn­ed experiences can be transferred through genetic structures — not by changes to genes themselves, but rather, to how they’re “marked” by other molecules.