Inherited Memories?

I ran across an interesting video on Facebook recently, about research that suggests certain memories (or at least phobias or fears) can be passed from one generation to the next through one's DNA. 

Here's a video that, if you'll be patient with the hosts, actually does explain the study in a clear, straightforward way:



People have talked for a long time about "racial memory" or even (to put a spiritual twist to it) "ancestral curses." Could it be there's an evolutionary adaptation at work here, that might make some aspect of the idea true?

Lots more study needs to be done, before we can say for sure. but it might very helpfully inform the treatment of fears, phobias, PTSD, depression, and a host of related maladies that currently have a lot of us stumped.

VIDEO: Many thanks to The Mind Unleashed and D News, for this video. And to my friend Lynette M. Burrows, for calling my attention to it in the first place.

Photo of Interest: Human Hand Cells

From the National Geographic listing of Best Science Visualizations of 2012 comes this eye-popping vision of cells in a human hand:

IMAGE: Many thanks to Erfun Kheirandish and National Geographic!

Photo of Interest: Solar Receptors of the Future

This image received an Honorable Mention recognition from National Geographic as one of the best science visualizations of 2009. Here is their description:

"Honorable Mention, Illustration: "Back to the Future"

"Created at the Second University of Naples in Italy, "Back to the Future" illustrates the principles of biomimeticism—the idea that nature’s creations can guide the design of future technology.

"Computer-generated drawings of future solar panels, 10 feet (3 meters) tall and 165 feet (50 meters) across, stand behind the organisms that inspired them—the microscopic marine algae known as Licmophora flabellata.

"Shown attached to sand grains in a scanning electron microscope image, these biological solar collectors have a flat, wedgelike form and a glasslike wall—features that allow them to absorb as much sunlight as possible for photosynthesis." 

IMAGE CREDIT: Mario De Stefano, Antonia Auletta, and Carla Langella, Second University of Naples, via National Geographic.