Inherited Memory Helped My Flies Until the World Changed. Then a Blank Slate Beat Them.
Earlier in this series I killed a brain and the memory lived through it. Then I dropped that memory into a fresh brain, and the fresh brain woke up believing a life it never lived. Creepy. Useful. One brain, one lifetime. Here is the part that actually kept me up. What if the memory never stops getting inherited? What if it gets handed down for generations, and then the world it learned turns out…
The memory that refuses to die proved useful in brain experiments, but a question lingered: could it be inherited for generations? The author built a line of flies with an inherited memory, only to discover the memory cost the line about eleven generations of survival compared to starting with a clean slate. The flies carrying the inherited memory struggled to adapt to an unfamiliar world, while blank slate flies thrived.
However, when the roles were reversed and the memory-free flies entered the original familiar world, they actually gained a slight advantage, despite the harsh conditions. The author concluded that inherited memory could become a liability, turning ignorance into a stronger survival strategy in certain situations.
Written by urgent.news from Dev.to's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
