life inspired

"Despite a century of research, memory encoding in the brain has remained mysterious. Neuronal synaptic connection strengths are involved, but synaptic components are short-lived while memories last lifetimes. This suggests synaptic information is encoded and hard-wired at a deeper, finer-grained molecular scale. In an article in the March 8 issue of the journal PLoS Computational Biology, physicists Travis Craddock and Jack Tuszynski of the University of Alberta, and anesthesiologist Stuart Hameroff of the University of Arizona demonstrate a plausible mechanism for encoding synaptic memory in microtubules, major components of the structural cytoskeleton within neurons". News article @ Science Daily

Paper: Craddock TJA , Tuszynski JA , Hameroff S (2012) "Cytoskeletal Signaling: Is Memory Encoded in Microtubule Lattices by CaMKII Phosphorylation?" PLoS Comput Biol 8(3): e1002421. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1002421

I wonder if these could be involved in phenotypical and inheritance effects assumed to be epigenetic...

"Small circles of extrachromosomal DNA appear to be widespread in mammals, and may be byproducts of small deletions in the nuclear DNA of somatic cells."New Type of DNA Discovered? | The Scientist

An improved method for analyzing deep RNA sequencing data provides a comprehensive view of RNA editing sites. A large-scale study of RNA editing in the transcriptome of a Han Chinese individual. These data provide the first reliable map of RNA edits in a person and revealed extensive RNA editing in a human transcriptome. See A closer look at RNA editing : Nature Biotechnology