#11 - Long Necks and Big Muscles

In this podcast we chat about the crazy world of epigenetics. From Jean Baptiste Lamark's half-baked theory of evolution, through Darwin and Mendel to today where scientist are confronted with more and more evidence of the environment shaping our genetic code. It seems our genetic potential is not as "fixed at birth" as we once assumed. Epigenetics is a hidden universe of potential. From the Dutch Famine (Hunger Winter) to Trofirm Lysenko and mass starvation in Soviet Russia and Maoist China to chick embryo's and heat stressed cattle, we discuss how epigenetics shapes life.

• Epigenetics: How Environment Shapes Our Genes
• Epigenetics Revolution: How Modern Biology Is Rewriting Our Understanding of Genetics, Disease and Inheritance
• Lysenko’s Ghost: Epigenetics and Russia