Evolutionary Theory with new DNA research findings

There has been a lot of stir in the scientific community about new research that suggests that memories may be passed down through DNA. They have mostly been testing things like fear - "That bird just dive-bombed me, and it hurt me when it hit me, so I'm afraid of birds now." Then the children, or grandchildren, of that person or animal is now also afraid of birds.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-25156510

But what if this memory retention applied for more than just our conscious memory and fears? What if this extended to things like memory of our surroundings? Memories of our struggles and our successes.

I'm not sure of his exact words, but part of Darwin's theory of evolution included random changes, or mutations, that are passed down from generation to generation. If DNA can pass down memories of events which cause fear, why can't it pass down memories of surroundings or difficulties that cause physical changes? These physical changes would no longer be random, they would be a decision made by our DNA which is fueled by knowledge and memories from that DNA.



Prior to recent history, where global travel is so simple, people have had light or dark skin depending on their geographical location. Their minds could be saying "There's a lot of sun here, and my skin keeps getting burned. Maybe I will be more protected if my skin is darker." and that causes the DNA to make the skin darker in the next generation. Then the next generation says "My skin is still getting burned! Maybe I need to keep making it darker, and maybe also make it thicker to be more resistant." and so on, until a good balance is found generations later.

On the other hand, someone in places like northern Canada, or Russia, or Alaska, which have a lot of snow, might be thinking the opposite. "There's a lot of snow here. If my skin, hair, and eyes were lighter I would be able to blend in to my surroundings more and would have an easier time hiding from all of these wolfs and such." So throughout the generations their skin becomes lighter, their hair approaches a blonde color, and their eyes become more like a blue color. All of which are lighter, and therefore harder to see in that environment.

Darwin's finches could have gone through a similar process. "I can't reach inside that flower, but if my beak were longer I could do it!"

There's also a lot of research that states that our subconscious mind is a lot more powerful than our conscious mind, and that our subconscious mind has more control over our actions than our conscious mind. So maybe our subconscious is passing these messages to the DNA without us even consciously thinking those thoughts.

When we reproduce, there may be two conflicting memories from the parents of the offspring. One says "It's sunny so I need to be darker" and the other says "There's a lot of snow so I need to blend in."

Maybe, in the first generation, these two conflicting thoughts go back and forth until one wins, and the outcome is a child with darker skin, hair, and eyes. And then maybe when that second generation reproduces, the older memory surfaces with the new memory still there, and realizes, "Things were better when my skin was lighter, so let's try that again. But the dark hair helped, so let's keep the dark hair with the lighter skin."

Or maybe the conflict results in a compromise right from the beginning, resulting in darker skin and lighter hair on the second generation. Or maybe the first generation couple has multiple children, and the DNA in the first child says "Let's try darker", the second says "Let's try lighter", and the third says "Lighter hair, darker skin", and the fourth says "Darker hair lighter skin", and so on from conflicting memories, not from random chance.

Bottom line, I think this new finding has a lot more impact than scientists currently realize. I'm no scientist, but I am very educated and have an uncanny ability to make links that others don't always see. I think this is a real possibility, and it would explain evolution even further.

Rambling about my epilepsy

As I was driving tonight I was doing some thinking. Be prepared here, this is going to get kind of random.

The first thought was "I haven't taken my pill yet tonight." Then I realized, I've never been without medication for more than roughly 1 month EVER in my life. EVER. I was born with epilepsy, and was quickly put on an anticonvulsant drug, and have been on such a drug ever since. I've been taken off of my medicine before, but only to have a seizure within about a month, which is why "about a month" is my record of being without medication.

On that train of though, I got to thinking... I really don't know who I am without medicine. And I wish I could find out. I really do. Unfortunately, me without medicine is probably me having a ton of seizures, and might lead to me not really being me anymore because the multiple seizures could lead to brain damage or other problems. (Yes, it has been proven that seizures can cause brain damage. And yes, I probably have some minor degree of brain damage due to my life long fight with epilepsy. And yes, I think my memory is affected by my seizures too.)

As I was thinking about that, I started thinking about possible triggers for these recent seizures. As far as I can tell, some possible triggers include:

• Allergies
• Stress
• Workouts
• Exhaustion

I put exhaustion as a subcategory of workouts because usually my exhaustion is due to extensive physical exertion. Whether it be an actual workout at the gym, or working around the house (or construction/deconstruction in my mom's and/or brother's houses) or moving (myself or others) or whatever else I may be doing that is physically demanding.

And finally, I started thinking... I'm going to have a seizure within a couple of days. How do I know? I can't really explain that, but I'd be surprised if I went from right now to the end of the work day on Monday without another seizure. If I were a betting man, I'd put my money on the 4:00 hour Monday afternoon. Most of my recent seizure seem to be between 4-5pm while I'm at work, so that's what I'm kind of expecting right now. Plus, I worked out Tuesday and Thursday this week, putting Monday at the 6-day mark after the initial workout, putting it about in line with my previous theory.

Also, I would put money on this year being the first time I have a seizure at camp. (Or at least my first recognized seizure at camp.) Why? Because all the signs point to seizure that week. All of the possible triggers I listed above will be present: August is usually the worst part of the year for my allergies, there is more stress at camp than can even be expressed through some ridiculous analogy, and we are climbing hills all week and are always exhausted by about Tuesday. All of that on top of the 1-2 seizures I've had per month for the past few months... it all adds up to seizure during camp.

In all reality, having a seizure at camp is not a big deal. Seizures happen at camp - it's a camp for kids with epilepsy. However, one of these seizures may be a big deal for ME at camp. If I have one of these hour+ long partial seizures at camp, I'll be down for the count for roughly a day. They take all of my energy out of me, and I already don't have any energy to spare at camp.

My biggest fear is that one of these partials will turn into a full out tonic-clonic. It hasn't happened yet, but if it's going to happen, camp will probably be that time. Why? Because of my already low energy level, the extreme physical requirement of camp, and the ridiculous stress level. Hopefully that doesn't happen, but it is a fear of mine.

So, I leave you with some countdowns:

44 hours until I expect my next seizure will be (Hopefully that countdown is wrong, and it doesn't happen)

330 hours until I arrive at camp

The past year

I was thinking the other day that I've been through a lot in the past year or so...
Let's start last July 3rd 2012: 1st recognized partial seizure

As a result of that one event: a trip to the hospital, 3 blood draws over a matter of roughly 2 months - one of which was done wrong and left a bruise for over 2 weeks, not driving for 6 months, starting a new medicine, more trips to the neurologist in 1 year than most people will make in a lifetime, an MRI - with no useful information, at least a half dozen more partial seizures over the year, an EEG - with no useful information despite having a simple partial seizure during the test, an increase of the medicine that I switched to, and a lot of days being exhausted from either having a seizure or changing/increasing medication.

Also, I learned that my seizures occur in the left side of my brain, because they affect the right side of my body. Unfortunately, this doesn't tell me enough to stop them for good, but it's information that I didn't have before.

Not resulting from the seizure: I was laid off from my job and started a new one about a month later


But on the other hand: I have created some semi-successful Android apps, helped my sister move, helped a friend move, moved myself into a new apartment, started living alone for the first time ever, started a new diet and lost some weight, got back into the gym, setup my weight bench in my new apartment so that it's easier to work out at home, bar tended a wedding for a friend of mine, helped my mom demolish her basement...

And probably more important events that I'm forgetting in each of these lists, but you get the point.


As some of you may know, I am always setting goals for myself. I started doing this mostly during my time at RIT, and I found that it helped me keep myself organized and it helped me stay on track. So having said that...

Goals for next year:

• Fitness
• Get down to 200-210lbs
• Lose enough to get rid of the "beer gut" entirely
• This number may be lower, depending on how I look/feel at my initial goal weight
• Start the "bulk-up" process of dieting and working out
• It's almost impossible to lose weight and bulk up at the same time. They require different diets, different workout routines... a whole different lifestyle. So once I'm done losing the weight, I'm going to work on strength and strength endurance. (yes, strength and strength endurance are 2 different things.)
• Re-join an all-star cheer team
• Tryouts are usually in April/May area, so I need to be ready by Spring time
• Job
• I have some goals here that I don't really want to make public (some of which extend past the next year)
• One long-term goal that I will announce is that I would like to further my Android development, and possibly form an official small business. Again, this is a long-term goal, and right now I have no target date set.
• Eventually, I may start developing for other platforms as well, or have someone else translate my apps to other platforms.
• Development
• Finish building "Google Games" features into Tic-Tac-Toe for Android
• Networked multi-player, achievements, etc.
• Finish Euchre for Android, and get "Google Games" features into that
• By "finish" I mean at least get a working game with some of the options found in the Windows version. Software is never finished.
• Get a solid foundation on the app that my brother wants to create
• Yes, another "secret". I do not want to give details about this app, but I/we will be working on something fairly big soon. It will probably be a while before it's available to the public.
• Continue development on Auto Respond, and try to increase sales of the pro version
• I've still got a list of features that I want to add
• I think I can increase sales with some advertising. Might have to bring in some digital designers to do some of my graphics.
• Life
• I was hoping to get a town house this year. After being laid-off that was put on hold, so that will be one of next year's goals.
• If some of my job goals can be reached I can start paying down my student loans a bit quicker, and that will help with everything
• Epilepsy
• Now that I'm back to what seems to be a controlled state, goal #1 is to stay seizure free as long as possible
• If that fails goal #2 will be to gather as much information as possible, as always

Making Life Better

Here's a lesson on how to make life more bearable. This is a very specific example of a strategy that can be applied to many situations.


A long time ago, I made myself a promise. I promised myself that I wouldn't allow my epilepsy affect my life. For anyone who has epilepsy, or knows anyone who has epilepsy, you know that keeping that promise is impossible.

Instead, over time I have changed my mission statement. I've decided not to allow my epilepsy to affect me negatively. I know what most of you are thinking... How? How does epilepsy not affect you negatively?

Well, there are positives and negatives to everything in life. I learned this, more than ever, in college. I went to college for Computer Engineering Technology. As part of my degree, I learned that for every choice you make in designing computer hardware there is always a positive effect and a negative effect. More memory means you can process more information (+) and get results faster (+) but it costs more money (-). Larger cache means that data is transferred quicker (+) and is processed quicker (+) but at a higher possibility of data mismatch (-). The entire premise of my degree is deciding which benefits (+) outweigh the costs (-) involved.

Using this same idea, I can say that for everything has my epilepsy has caused negatively, there has also been a positive aspect. I have seizures (-) but I can go to epilepsy camp (+) and have made life-long friends (+) and memories (+) while there. This summer I had my first seizure in 7 years (-) and can't drive for 6 months because of it (-), but I was able to find a medication which is better suited for me (+) and I learned more about where in my brain my seizure are generated (+) as well as how my seizures actually progress over time (+).

Life as a whole is about getting more positives (+) than negatives (-), and I can truly say that I have had more positive than negative in my life due to my epilepsy. But if I didn't have the right attitude toward the situation, this would not be the case.

I have dedicated a large portion of my life to not only making MY life better, but also to giving other people with epilepsy a better standard of living. I went to camp as a camper from the ages of 8 to 17. When I turned 18, I became a counselor at camp, and I do so for absolutely no compensation. I Volunteer a week of my summer (-), every year, to being with these kids and making their lives better (+). Now, don't get me wrong... I don't do it ENTIRELY for the kids. Camp is still a GREAT time for me as well (+). Most of the people who I grew up with at camp are also still there as counselors (+), some of which are my best friends (+), and I wouldn't ever allow myself to not spend that week with them.

Tonight, I spent time talking to a friend with a 4 year old son who just had his first seizure (-). Explaining to her how to deal with it (+), what what it means to her and her child (+), and where to go to get information (+), among many other things (+++). This is something that I enjoyed thoroughly. Don't get me wrong, I'm not at all glad that her child had a seizure, and I feel awful that she had to witness that (-). But I did enjoy talking her through it. Witnessing her go from a scared parent, to a calm and collective parent with a plan of how to proceed with her son's potential treatment. The joy of the fact that I was able to help someone deal with what I KNOW from experience is a terrifying thing. As far as my +/- count goes, that's about (6+) and (2-) for my friend. She now has information, confidence, and security even though her son had a seizure.

Now, as I alluded to earlier... it is impossible for epilepsy to not have any negative impact on my life. But if my epilepsy leads to more positive impacts than negative impacts, the OVERALL impact  is positive; and that's the part that matters.



TL;DR - In life there are positives and negatives to everything. If you can find a way to create more positives than negatives, ANYTHING can become a positive impact on your life.