a mothers work is never done

In a bid to keep you enlightened with my scientific work I bring you the next exciting episode of trout and migration (im hoping to be inspired for a more catchy title to sell it to you).

Traditional thinking of what/how we are, lay the responsibility with genetics and environment:

For example genetics says we have green eyes and a slim figure, but eating a lot of burgers and chips probably wont change the eye colour, but might make a difference to your genetically determined slimness. (this is not directed at anyone, apologies if anyone has green eyes and or a slim/fat backside. All characters in this story are entirley fictitious the auther accepts no responsibility for anything. read on and it will all make sense) Unfortunately its just not as simple as lots of burgers = fat backside, and the complicating factor is:

Mothers

(who’s been feeding you all those burgers anyway)

Mothers can directly affect the way we turn out just by the decisions she makes in her life. Nothing to do with inherited genes, and less to do with environment. In science we like to give phenomenon a catchy and sexy phrase that roles off the tongue: environmentally modulated transgenerational phenotypic plasticity.

We know that the sex of some reptiles (for example) depends on the temperature its egg is incubated at, but who decides how deep the egg is buried in the sand and if its in a sunny or shady location? Our intelligence or height may be genetically determined, but who gives us the headstart to expliot our genes, that can often lead to us being constantly ahead of everybody else? You guessed it:

In short how environment and genes are translated in ourselves depends a lot on our maternal influence.

Doesn’t mean we can blame all of Henry the 8ths wives for not bearing a boy child. That was Henry the 8^ths mothers fault (Ye thanks, Elizabeth of York, for pampering your tyrant. and thanks to google for making me look knowledgable. Tudor history anyone?). Because even the genes we inherit from both our parents are ultimately decided by our mother, at least in co opertive breeding – because she chooses the mate to sire her offspring (a sneaky suspicion says a few of us might have a few things to say to our mothers about this).

In effect this means that we can blame pretty much all our short comings on our mothers, and since im never going to be a mother, nothing can ever really be my fault. (Sorry Agnes). Its great to be a man, for generations we suppressed women, we still earn more wages equivalent to women, hold more positions of power and prestige, never experience childbirth and can never be blamed for anything. And im not even being sexist. Science the great equaliser.

Where was I... oh ye. This counts for fish too. In trout (where you get fish which are migratory and fish which are resident) fish which are resident seem to have different eggs to those which migrate; it might influence what happens to their offspring. so genetically offspring could do both (stay or go), environment helps them make that decision, but the effect of the mother is critical. Apparently this hasn’t been fully tested in brown trout .

Im off to bask in my puritanical absolvence.

PS yes mom; you can, equally, take the credit for the good things etc.