My first though “what in the Lamarkian hell is this?”
Second thought: I bet they’re just rediscovering epigenetics again.
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Well, I mean viruses are how you get placental mammals.
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… Too bad there’s no warranty or service plan, though- I think my meat machine is defective. /silly
(In all seriousness, though- the body is amazingly resilient, frustratingly delicate, gross, and beautiful all at the same time.)
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They did a study in Sweden, oh maybe two decades ago, that showed that what your grandparents ate, before puberty, impacted your metabolism (e.g. your likelihood of being diabetic) due to epigenetic changes caused by diet. Two generations back. It was about that time researchers seemed to start taking epigenetics really seriously.
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(Only joking. I do know what a rhinovirus is.) 
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Mentioned in the OP.
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There’s one that long-predates 2019, that showed a diabetes link. Might be the same researchers, though.
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Analogy for people familiar with computers, at least on the command line. Some programs have command line flags. Compilers especially but other command line utilities also. An example is turning on/off debugging or verbose mode. You run a program with the verbose flag on (-v) and you get a play by play of everything it is doing. You run it with verbose off and it might say two messages like: running, and then complete.
The code for printing out the play by play is still in the program whether the flag is set or not, but some parts run, and others do not based on the flags. The epigenetics are like the flags. The genes (code) are always there, the methylation caps them off or keeps the DNA strand wound up tight and out of play, turning it off temporarily.
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I am gonna take your word for it. I have no earthly idea of what I just read!
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Ha. Yeah, after I wrote that, I thought maybe I don’t know genetics that well and got it wrong and it is not a good analogy because not everyone uses computers and of the people that do use computers not many use command lines any more, so basically ignore what I wrote 
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The Stanford OpenCourseware playlist for Human Biology had what seemed like a pretty good primer on epigenetics (at least to me as a layman). https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL848F2368C90DDC3D Regrettably I can’t remember which lecture it was, but it sparked a really good conversation with my son on intergenerational trauma, the need for empathy and how education isn’t just learning facts, but also learning to set aside your earlier oversimplifications.
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Agree with all of that. I will add that it is always an oversimplification. Every concept we are “familiar” with has deeper levels to it, and the more expert you are, the more you realize how deep they are, and how shallow our understanding is. Hell, it is becoming clear that quantum fucking mechanics plays a key role in photosynthesis for sure, and probably mitochondrial function as well. From these it would follow that every single bacterium out there is reliant on manipulation of quantum functions for it’s very existence. As a physician, i have a few patients with mitochondrial disorders. Do i have any chance of grasping emough quantum mechanics to fully understand, let alone explain, what is happening? HELL NO! So, i settle for oversimplification. Don’t worry about it too much.
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Quantum mechanics plays a key role in everything. Less glibly, though, both chlorophylls in plastids and cytochromes in mitochondria work by moving electrons around one at a time, so for sure it is important to understanding what they do in detail.
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I’ve heard of this concept before. It makes me wonder what genetic changes were wrought in people who had been enslaved for generations, or lived through the concentration camps, genocide, and war. Are Native Americans and other indigenous people more susceptible to diabetes and addiction because of what was done to their ancestors?
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