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Stressed-out plants warn their offspring

Increased tendency to mutate is handed down to next generation.

Plants under stress not only activate their own defences, but also manage to pass on a possible protective strategy to their descendants. That's the surprising conclusion of a study published online today by Nature1.

Read the story here.

Posted by Nicola Jones on August 7, 2006 10:27 AM |

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Comments

This work is fascinating. It reminds me of Elizabeth Blackburns study of mothers who were caring for very ill children, the mothers telomeres became shorting with increases in reported emotional stress levels. Making them more likely to experience telomeric crisis in cells and perhaps increasing their chances of getting cancer. Add this work, could it have meaning for humans too? If it does and if Blackburns work holds, stress is absolutely bad for humans. Should I quit my job and become a beach bumb? Please say yes.

Posted by: Robert | August 7, 2006 04:47 PM

This vindicates the theory of karma of the Hindu thought.Also please accept Bergsen's views that we recreate ourselves.
This is well known to our forefathers.

I consider even the organs in the body adapt to mutations through generations.Hence stem cells can be made stress independent.How the weather and living milieu affect the gene is still under study.I congratulate the scientist lady.
VRG

Posted by: V.Rajagopalan | August 8, 2006 01:24 AM

Commenting on the study published online in Nature (Molinier J., et al. 2006. Nature doi:10.1038/nature0502), Heidi Ledford observes that: “plants under stress not only activate their own defences, but also manage to pass on a possible protective strategy to their descendants. That's the surprising conclusion…” There is nothing new or surprising about this finding as many other researchers have already reported similar findings; for example, the studies reported by Grant and Grant on the variations in finch’s beak [Science 296:707-711 (2002), Science, 313:224 – 226 (2006)]. There is a common thread in all these findings that the genetic program for bringing about the required mutation is available in the cell itself. This has been demonstrated long ago by
Miroslav Radman (see Chicurel, M. 2001. Science 292(5523):1824-1827; Cairns et al. 1988 The origin of mutants. Nature 335: 142-145). The phenomenon of cell-directed mutagenesis reported by them adequately explains all these phenomena.

It appears that the current view of particulate gene and genome is too inadequate to explain many of these phenomena and needs to be changed (see also The Computer Universe; The Great Gene Fiasco – both books published by Adam Publishers, New Delhi, India).

Posted by: P.A.Wahid | August 9, 2006 04:32 AM

The advantage of increased mutation rates for stressed descendants should be obvious: Specication. The normal way for a parent plant to get stressed is by being somewhat but not optimally fit for its environment. By upping the mutation rate, some of the descendants may be able to form a new species that exploit this niche - which benefits the genes of those descendants tremendously.

[Editor: yes, that is the theory. It just hasn't been proven yet.]

Posted by: Eivind Eklund | August 9, 2006 11:43 AM

Excuse me if this is just ignorant -- I stand outside the scientific playing field looking in -- but if any mutations based on experience are proven to be passed genetically from one generation to the next, isn't that a huge rebuttal to natural selection?

Posted by: Andrew | August 9, 2006 11:19 PM

Stress causes hernia

Experts state that stress is causing hernias, most commonly in the neck but also in various other places. Stress is causing the back and stomach muscles to tighten which in turn causes the discs in the spinal cord to be pulled out of line. Experts say, “These stress hernias are found mostly in women. The most common cause of this stress is family problems. These women seem to internalize their problems rather than talking about them.” Experts claim that if these patients don’t deal with their problems, the treatments won’t be useful.

You must have a minimum of 15 minutes rest

Experts warn that stress and tension is causing heart, stomach, intestine and hormonal problems, “The best way to get rid of stress is to have 15-60 minutes rest every day.” Stress and tension makes pain less easy to bear.

Experts claim stress and tension can make you feel pain for no reason, “Stress causes you to feel pain 3-5 times more than normal. Stress makes people more sensitive to pain. Half of all illnesses are caused by tension. When people get stressed about an illness and how they’ll be affected by it, it makes their pain worse.”
Alternative Medicine

Posted by: alternative medicine | April 29, 2007 07:06 PM

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