Richard raves:

>"Common Nutrients Fed To Pregnant Mice Altered Their Offspring's Coat
>Color"
>http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/08/030801081754.htm
>
>This is extremely big news! We now see that offspring may have an
>inherent, but non-hereditable environmental advantage. This could play
>havoc with Darwinian evolution, because it means that species could
>not as effectively be selected for hereditable fitness.
>
>Suppose that a red skin confers the ultimate survival advantage to a
>species. The population consists of individuals with purple skins, a
>combination of blue and red, but no perfectly red skins. Now, some of
>the population eats something that results in offspring with perfectly
>red skin. They reproduce--but there was no genetic adaptation, as the
>red skins were only the result of nutrition. The offspring, in the
>absence of the nutrients, still have purple skin, even though natural
>selection favored the reproduction of their parents.
>
>Of course, it would work the other way, too. A perfectly fit
>population might be selected against, simply due to the temporary
>differences caused by maternal nutrition. So, there is a randomizing
>element that confounds simple natural selection.
>
>I vote for the Nobel Prize for this discovery. It is very, very big,
>and we can hardly grasp its full significance.

Although, as you say, we can hardly grasp its full significance, we can name
the process. The phenomenon has been called "epigenesis" or
"phenotypic
plasticity" for a great long while now. At any evolutionary biology meeting
nowadays, the talks that address themselves to this process are presented under
the section title "G x E" (genetics x environment), meaning genetic effects
that are mediated by environmental considerations. 

There was a very entertaining set of letters written to the editors of Science
two years ago, no less enthusiastic than your current note, between one M.
Bacon, writing in 1910, and C-t Wu and JR Morris, responding in 2000. The
phenomenon and etymology of "epigenesis" is discussed in detail
in the back and
forth responses between the several gentlemen. For a copy of the letters, see:

http://www.esb.utexas.edu/dr325/WC-articles/Genetics-Epigenetics-History-M
eaning%20Science%202001.pdf

(watch the wrap)

Wirt Atmar
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