It is both fascinating and encouraging to see that as we get more specific, more granular looks at the inner-workings of human beings the more the mechanistic, reductionistic models start to fall away. Even the field of genetics which was historically very mechanistic has started to shift.
Popular science has grabbed hold of the idea of epigenetics which shifts the power from the genome to the epigenome which has proven to be much more “suggestible”, meaning, that our overall state, thoughts and emotions (really, our Estate) have a greater impact on its actions. This is important because the epigenome has huge influence on whether certain genes (including genes for diseases like cancer) express in the body.
Epigenetic expression is the reason that “genetically inherited” diseases express in some people and not in others in the same family. The gene is not the rigid blueprint we once thought it was. Another new dimension in studying genes has been presented by 2 researchers from the University of Illinois. Xue and Goldenfeld published a paper last week entitled Stochastic Predator-Prey Dynamics of Transposons in the Human Genome in Physical Letters Review.
This paper looks at a highly dynamic element of the genetic code called “Transposons” or Transposable Elements (TE). TE’s are sequences that migrate between different parts of the host genome. The authors share:
“Transposons are regarded as a major driver of adaptation and evolution since they can induce both beneficial and deleterious transformations in the host genome, by inserting into encoding or regulation sequences, or causing misaligned pairing and unequal crossover of chromosomes.”
The way that these snippets of code move around the gene is critical in whether the gene and the human express health or illness. Here’s what is really amazing. These TE’s account for 45% of the human genome. 45% of our genetic code is not stuck in this rigid, curved ladderlike structure we see in pictures, but rather, is in a constant flow, a dance of form and conformation.
Wow, this gives a whole new look at how dynamic our genetics actually are. What then, determines the movement of these gene pieces? Well, there are biochemical reactions that trigger the movement, but overall it is controlled by fluctuations of the population of 2 specific types of TE’s called LINE’s (long interspersed nuclear elements) and SINE’s (short interspersed nuclear elements).
The researchers found that these 2 types of elements reacted in mathematical correlation that was modeled closest by “predator-prey” dynamics in the wild (modeled in differential equations). The more predators that exist in an environment the more prey population dwindles. Eventually the predators either die or move and the prey population grows back. This is exactly how these 2 types of TE’s behave.
Why is this exciting to Reorganizational Healing practitioners? A quote from the paper:
“Our model predicts that number fluctuations generate persistent, noisy oscillations in the population of the TE’s, with a characteristic time scale that is much longer than the cell replication time, indication that the state of the predator-prey oscillator is stored in the genome and transmitted to successive generations.”
A few things rise in this quote alone, the first is that when the researchers are looking at this complex, far from equilibrium system they are seeing evidence of another structure that is likely controlled by the thermodynamic type laws influencing the SINE’s and LINE’s. Because NSA research has focused significant energy on studying oscillators in the spine and nervous system, its valuable to recognize other oscillators in the body and especially other oscillators that control expression of an aspect of life.
A second relevant piece in this quote is that the overall time scale of the predator-prey dynamic was longer than the replication cycle of the cell itself. If this is true how is it that any changes in the genome is actually being completed and passed along? The researchers suggest that the “nature of the predator-prey oscillator is store in the genome”. Interesting, so the oscillator itself is stored in the genome? Hmm, what if instead the oscillatory nature of change was information stored in the field and the change was field mediated rather than mechanistically mediated in the structure of the DNA itself?
This offers a very different perspective on this whole picture. Now we see DNA as code that is highly malleable (45% transposon composition) that is field mediated (hypothesis). Add in what we know about epigenetics and we can see that Estates also will have a tremendous impact on whether these transposons create changes that beneficial to the growth and health of the organism or damaging.
In Reorganizational Healing we recognize the impact of the field on the human structure and life and now we see research that, when seen through the Reorganizational lens, could support a very similar process occurring in the DNA as well.
Research: http://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.117.208101
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