When Mendel's rules don't apply: Mouse study reveals hidden epigenetic inheritance
Credit: Art design by Michael Koldobskiy and Andrew Feinberg, illustration by Kate Zvorykina Scientists have long known that the DNA code in genes is not the only way to pass genetic traits from parents to offspring. "Epigenetic" marks—chemical modifications to DNA that don't change the DNA code itself—can also be passed down. Now, a new study using mice reveals that some of those marks—about 7% of them—can be inherited in ways that break the century-long understanding of the rules of inheritance explored and recorded by Gregor Mendel's work with pea plants.
- ▪Credit: Art design by Michael Koldobskiy and Andrew Feinberg, illustration by Kate Zvorykina Scientists have long known that the DNA code in genes is not the only way to pass genetic traits from parents to offspring.
- ▪"Epigenetic" marks—chemical modifications to DNA that don't change the DNA code itself—can also be passed down.
- ▪Now, a new study using mice reveals that some of those marks—about 7% of them—can be inherited in ways that break the century-long understanding of the rules of inheritance explored and recorded by Gregor Mendel's work with pea plants.
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| Original publisher | Phys.org |
| Canonical URL | https://phys.org/news/2026-05-mendel-dont-mouse-reveals-hidden.html |
| Publication time | Wed, 20 May 2026 11:20:06 EDT |
| Retrieval time | 2026-05-20T15:25:02.668Z |
| Last seen | 2026-05-20T15:25:03.975Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
| Excerpt method | First ~120 words (~800 chars) of extracted publisher body, fair-use limited. |
| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | 95cqFSo-JOLC |
| Cluster logic | Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison. |
| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
| Substitutes article? | No — link-out required for full text |
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| Indexing | May the item be indexed (stored, ranked, made findable)? | Allowed |
| Snippet | May a short excerpt of the publisher's text be shown? | Allowed |
| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
May 20, 2026 When Mendel's rules don't apply: Mouse study reveals hidden epigenetic inheritance by Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine edited by Gaby Clark, reviewed by Andrew Zinin Gaby Clark Scientific Editor Meet our editorial team Behind our editorial process Andrew Zinin Lead Editor Meet our editorial team Behind our editorial process Editors' notes This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: fact-checked peer-reviewed publication trusted source proofread The GIST Add as preferred source Genetic information in the DNA and modifications, such as DNA methylation, define the epigenetic landscape and phenotype and show both Mendelian and…
Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at Phys.org.