A scientific look at telegony: what to expect if your grandmother “sinned with a diver.

But none of this happened. It was the doorway that melted away like a vile dream, and never returned.

Apparently, the devastation is not so terrible. Regardless of her, twice a day, the gray harmonicas under the window sills filled with heat, and the heat dispersed in waves around the apartment.

Quite clearly: the dog pulled out the most important dog ticket. His eyes now filled with grateful tears at least twice a day at the address of the Prechistensky sage. In addition, all the dressing table in the living room-reception between the cabinets reflected the lucky handsome dog.

“I am a handsome man. Perhaps an unknown canine prince incognito,” the dog thought, looking at a shaggy coffee dog with a contented muzzle, walking in mirrored distances. “It is very possible that my grandmother sinned with a diver. I have a white spot on my muzzle. Where does it come from, one wonders? Philipp Philippovich is a man of great taste, he won't take the first janitor dog he comes across.

During the week, the dog ate as much as in the last one and a half hungry months on the street. But, of course, only by weight. There was no need to talk about the quality of Philip Philipovich's food. Even if we do not take into account the fact that Darya Petrovna bought a pile of scraps every day at the Smolensk market for eighteen kopecks, it is enough to mention the dinners at seven o'clock in the evening in the dining room, at which the dog was present, despite the protests of the elegant Zina. During these dinners, Philip Philipovich finally received the title of a deity. The dog stood up on its hind legs and chewed on his jacket, the dog studied Philipp Philippovich's call - two full-sounding jerky master's blows, and flew out barking to meet him in the hallway. The owner tumbled in a black-brown fox, sparkling with a million snow sparkles, smelling of tangerines, cigars, perfumes, lemons, gasoline, cologne, cloth, and his voice, like a command trumpet, carried throughout the dwelling.

Why did you, pig, tore the owl apart? Did she bother you? Interfered, I ask you? Why did he break Professor Mechnikov?

You need to rip him off with a whip at least once, Philipp Philippovich," Zina said indignantly, "otherwise he will be completely spoiled. You look what he did with your galoshes.

Nobody can fight! Philip Philipovich got excited. - Remember this once and for all. Man and animal can only be acted upon by suggestion. Did they give him meat today?

God! He ate the whole house. What are you asking, Philip Philipovich. I'm surprised it doesn't burst.

Well, let him eat to his health ... What prevented you from an owl, a bully?

Woo! whined the fawning dog and crawled on its belly, twisting its paws.

Then, with a hubbub, he was dragged by the collar through the reception room into the office. The dog howled, snarled, clung to the carpet, rode on its backside, as in a circus. In the middle of the office, on the carpet, lay a glass-eyed owl with its belly open, from which some red rags were sticking out, smelling of mothballs. A shattered portrait lay on the table.

I didn’t clean it up on purpose so that you could admire it,” Zina reported in frustration, “after all, what a scoundrel jumped up on the table! And for her tail - tsap! I did not have time to come to my senses, as he tore her all to pieces. Poke him with his muzzle at an owl, Philipp Philippovich, so that he knows how to spoil things.

And the howl began. The dog, sticking to the carpet, was dragged to poke at the owl, and the dog burst into bitter tears and thought: "Beat, just don't kick me out of the apartment."

Send the owl to the stuffed animal today. Besides, here's eight rubles and sixteen kopecks for the tram, go to Myur's, buy him a good collar with a chain.

The next day, the dog was put on a wide, shiny collar. At the first moment, looking in the mirror, he was very upset, tucked his tail and went into the bathroom, thinking about how to rip him off on a chest or box. But very soon the dog realized that he was just a fool. Zina took him for a walk on a chain. The dog walked along Obukhov Lane like a prisoner, burning with shame, but having walked along Prechistenka to the Cathedral of Christ, he perfectly realized what a collar means in life. Furious envy was read in the eyes of all the dogs he met, and at Dead Lane some lanky mongrel with a chopped off tail barked at him as a "master's bastard" and "six". When they crossed the tram rails, the policeman looked at the collar with pleasure and respect, and when they returned, the most unprecedented thing in life happened: Fyodor the doorman unlocked the front door with his own hand and let Sharik in. At the same time, he remarked:

Look how shaggy Philipp Philippovich has acquired. And surprisingly fat.

Still would! For six it bursts, - Zina, ruddy and beautiful from the frost, explained.

"A collar is like a briefcase," the dog mentally quipped and, wagging his backside, followed into the mezzanine like a gentleman.

Appreciating the collar at its true worth, the dog made his first visit to that main branch of paradise, where until now he had been categorically forbidden to enter, namely, to the kingdom of the cook Darya Petrovna. The whole apartment was not worth even two spans of Darya's kingdom. Every day, flames shot and raged in the black-topped and tiled slab. The oven crackled. In the crimson pillars, Darya Petrovna's face burned with eternal fiery torment and unquenched passion. It was shiny and oozing with grease. In a fashionable hairstyle with ears and a basket of blond hair at the back of her head, twenty-two fake diamonds shone. Golden pans hung on hooks on the walls, the whole kitchen rumbled with smells, bubbled and hissed in closed vessels ...

Out! yelled Darya Petrovna. - Out, homeless pickpocket! You were missing here! I poker you...

What are you? Well, what are you up to? - touchingly narrowed his eyes the dog. What kind of pickpocket am I? Don't you notice the collar? - and he climbed sideways through the door, sticking his muzzle into it.

Sharik had some secret to win people's hearts. Two days later he was already lying next to the basket of coals and watched how Darya Petrovna worked. With a sharp and narrow knife, she cut off the heads and legs of helpless hazel grouses, then, like a furious executioner, she tore off the flesh from the bones, tore out the insides from the chickens, and spit something in a meat grinder. At that time, the ball was tormenting the hazel grouse's head. From a bowl of milk Darya Petrovna pulled out pieces of a soaked bun, mixed them on a board with meat gruel, poured it all over with cream, sprinkled with salt, and molded cutlets on the board. The stove buzzed like a fire, and the frying pan grumbled, bubbling and jumping. The flapper jumped back with a roar, revealing a terrible hell. It bubbled, it poured.

In the evening, the fiery passion died out, in the kitchen window, over the white half of the curtain, there was a thick and important Prechistenka night with a single star. The kitchen floor was damp, the pots shone mysteriously and dimly, a fireman's cap lay on the table. Sharik lay on the warm stove, like a lion on a gate, and, with one ear upturned in curiosity, watched as a black-moustached and agitated man in a wide leather belt behind the half-closed door in Zina and Darya Petrovna's room embraced Darya Petrovna. Her face burned with torment and passion, everything except her dead, powdered nose. A slit of light lay on the portrait of the black-whiskered one, and an Easter rose hung from him.

Like a demon stuck, - Darya Petrovna muttered in the twilight, - leave me alone. Now 3ina will come. What are you, purely you, too, rejuvenated?

We don't need anything, - the black-moustachio answered hoarsely, having a bad control over himself. How hot are you...

In the evenings, the Prechistenskaya star was hidden behind heavy curtains, and if there was no Aida at the Bolshoi Theater and there was no meeting of the All-Russian Surgical Society, the deity was placed in an armchair. There were no lights under the ceiling, only one green lamp on the table was on. Sharik lay on the carpet in the shade and, without looking up, looked at the terrible deeds. In a disgusting caustic and muddy liquid in glass vessels lay human brains. The deity's hands, bare to the elbow, were in red rubber gloves, and slippery blunt fingers swarmed in the convolutions. At times, the deity armed himself with a small sparkling knife and quietly cut the yellow elastic brains.

- "To the banks of the sacred Nile," the deity hummed softly, biting his lips and remembering the golden interior of the Bolshoi Theater.

The pipes at this hour were heated to the highest point. The heat from them rose to the ceiling, from there spread throughout the room, in the dog's fur coat came to life the last, not yet combed out by Philip Philipovich himself, but already doomed flea. Carpets muffled the sounds in the apartment. And then the front door rang in the distance.

“Zinka has gone to the cinema,” thought the dog, “but when she comes, we’ll have dinner, so we’ll have dinner. For dinner, presumably, veal chops.”

And on this terrible day, even in the morning, Sharik was struck with a premonition. As a result, he suddenly got bored and ate his morning breakfast - half a cup of oatmeal and yesterday's lamb bone - without any appetite. He wandered dully into the waiting room and howled lightly at his own reflection. But the day after Zina took him for a walk on the boulevard, the day passed as usual. There was no reception today, because, as you know, there are no receptions on Tuesdays, and the deity was sitting in the office, unfolding some heavy books with colorful pictures on the table. They were waiting for dinner. The dog was somewhat revived by the thought that today, as he knew for sure in the kitchen, there would be a turkey for the second course. As he was walking down the corridor, the dog heard the phone ringing unpleasantly and unexpectedly in Philipp Philippovich's corridor. Philipp Philippovich picked up the phone, listened, and suddenly became agitated.

He began to fuss, rang the bell, and when Zina came in, he ordered dinner to be served urgently. Dinner! Dinner! Dinner! In the dining room there was an immediate clatter of plates, Zina ran in, and Darya Petrovna grumbled from the kitchen that the turkey was not ready. The dog felt excited again.

"I don't like turmoil in the apartment," he thought... And as soon as he thought this, the commotion took on an even more unpleasant character. And above all, thanks to the appearance of the once bitten doctor Bormental. He brought a foul-smelling suitcase with him and, without even undressing, rushed with it through the corridor to the examination room. Philipp Philippovich threw down his unfinished cup of coffee, which had never happened to him, and ran out to meet Bormental, which had never happened to him either.

When did he die? he shouted.

Three hours ago,” answered Bormental, without taking off his snow-covered hat and unbuttoning his suitcase.

"Who is dead?" - the dog thought sullenly and not quite, and poked his feet under his feet. "I can't stand it when they rush about."

Get out from under your feet! Hurry, hurry, hurry! shouted Philipp Philippovich in all directions and began to ring all the bells, as it seemed to the dog. Zina came running. - 3ina! To the phone Darya Petrovna, write down, do not receive anyone! You are needed. Dr. Bormental, I beg you, hurry, hurry!

"I don't like it. I don't like it," the dog frowned resentfully and began to wander around the apartment, and all the fuss was concentrated in the observation room. Zina suddenly found herself in a dressing gown that looked like a shroud, and began to fly from the examination room to the kitchen and back.

"Go, what, eat? Well, they are in the swamp," the dog decided and suddenly got a surprise.

Do not give Sharik anything, - the command from the observation room thundered.

Watch him, how.

Lock up!

And Sharik was lured and locked in the bathroom.

"Rudeness," thought Sharik, sitting in the dimly lit bathroom, "simply stupid..."

And for about a quarter of an hour he spent in the bathroom in a strange state of mind - now in anger, now in some kind of heavy decline. Everything was boring, unclear ...

"All right, you will have galoshes tomorrow, dear Philipp Philippovich," he thought, "I had to buy two pairs, and buy another one. So that you don't lock up the dogs."

But suddenly his furious thought was interrupted. Suddenly and clearly, for some reason, I remembered a piece of my earliest youth, a sunny, vast courtyard near the Preobrazhenskaya Zastava, fragments of the sun in bottles, broken bricks, free stray dogs.

“No, where else, you won’t leave here for any will, why lie,” the dog yearned, sniffing his nose, “I’m used to it. I’m a master’s dog, an intelligent creature, I tasted a better life. And what is will? So, smoke, a mirage, a fiction ... The nonsense of these ill-fated democrats ... "

Then the semi-darkness of the bathroom became terrible, he howled, rushed to the door, and began to scratch.

Woo! - like a barrel flew around the apartment.

"I'll tear the owl apart again," the dog thought furiously, but powerlessly. Then he weakened, lay down, and when he got up, the hair on him suddenly stood on end, for some reason disgusting wolf eyes appeared in the bath ...

And in the midst of anguish, the door was opened. The dog went out, brushing himself off, and sullenly got ready for the kitchen, but Zina insistently dragged him by the collar into the examination room. A chill went through the dog's heart.

"Why did they need me?" he thought suspiciously. "The side has healed - I don't understand anything."

And he went with his paws on the slippery parquet, and was brought to the observation room. It was immediately struck by unprecedented lighting. The white ball under the ceiling shone to the point that hurt the eyes. A priest stood in a white glow and hummed through his teeth about the sacred banks of the Nile. Only by the vague smell could one recognize that it was Philipp Philippovich. His trimmed gray hair was hidden under a white cap, reminiscent of a patriarchal skullcap. The priest was all in white, and over the white, like a stole, was wearing a narrow rubber apron. Hands in black gloves.

In the skufeika turned out to be bitten. A long table was spread out, and a small square table on a shiny leg was pushed to the side.

The dog here most of all hated the bitten one and most of all for his today's eyes. Usually bold and direct, now they ran in all directions from the dog's eyes. They were alert, false, and in the depths of them lurked a bad, dirty deed, if not even a whole crime. The dog looked at him heavily and gloomily, went off into a corner.

Collar, Zina," said Philipp Philippovich in a low voice, "just don't worry him.

Zina instantly became the same vile eyes, like those of a bitten one. She went up to the dog and stroked him, obviously falsely. He looked at her with anguish and contempt.

"Well... there are three of you. Take it if you want. Shame on you... If only I knew what you would do to me."

Zina unfastened the collar, the dog shook his head and snorted. The bitten one grew in front of him, and a foul, cloudy smell spilled from him.

"Fu, disgusting... Why am I so vague and scared ..." - thought the dog and backed away from the bitten one.

Hurry, doctor,” said Philip Philipovich impatiently.

There was a sharp and sweet smell in the air. The bitten one, without taking his watchful, rotten eyes off the dog, poked out from behind his back right hand and quickly poked the dog's nose with a ball of damp cotton wool. Sharik was taken aback, his head was spinning slightly, but he still managed to recoil. The bitten one jumped after him and suddenly covered his whole muzzle with cotton wool. Immediately he stopped breathing, but once again the dog managed to escape. "Zlodey ... - flashed through my head. - But what?" And wrapped up again. Suddenly, in the middle of the observation deck, a lake appeared, and on it, in boats, very cheerful afterlife, unprecedented, pink dogs. The legs were boneless and bent.

To the table! - Filipp Philippovich's words boomed somewhere in a cheerful voice and blurred in orange jets. The horror disappeared, was replaced by joy, for two seconds the fading dog loved the bitten one. Then the whole world turned upside down, and a cold but pleasant hand was still felt under the stomach. Then - nothing.

The dog Sharik lay sprawled out on the narrow operating table, his head pounding helplessly against a white oilcloth pillow. His belly had been shaved off, and now Dr. Bormenthal, breathing heavily and in a hurry, eating into the wool with a typewriter, was cutting off Sharik's head. Philipp Philippovich, leaning his palms on the edge of the table, shining like the gold rims of his glasses, watched this procedure with his eyes and said excitedly:

He raised his hands at this time, as if blessing the ill-fated dog Sharik for the difficult feat. He tried to ensure that not a single speck of dust sat on the black rubber.

The dog's whitish skin gleamed from under the shorn fur. Bormental threw the typewriter away and armed himself with a razor. He lathered the helpless little head and began to shave. There was a strong crunch under the blade, blood came out in some places. Having shaved his head, the bitten one wiped it with a wet lump of gasoline, then stretched the dog's bare belly and said, puffing: "It's done."

Zina opened the faucet over the sink, and Bormental rushed to wash his hands. Zina poured alcohol over them from a flask.

May I leave, Philip Philipovich? she asked, looking timidly at the dog's shaved head.

Here the priest stirred. He straightened up, looked at the dog's head and said:

Well, God bless. Knife!

Bormenthal took out a small belly knife from the sparkling heap on the table and handed it to the priest. Then he put on the same black gloves as the priest.

Sleeping? asked Philip Philipovich.

Sleep well.

Philip Philipovich's lips contracted, his eyes took on a sharp, prickly gleam, and, waving the knife, he accurately and long stretched the wound across Sharik's stomach. The skin immediately parted, and blood spurted from it in different directions. Bormental pounced rapaciously, began to crush the ball wound with clods of cotton wool, then with small, as if sugar tweezers, pinched its edges, and it dried up. Sweat broke out on Bormental's forehead. Philipp Philippovich slashed a second time, and the two of them began tearing Sharik's body apart with hooks, scissors, and some kind of brackets. Pink and yellow fabrics, weeping with bloody dew, jumped out. Philipp Philippovich twirled the knife in his body, then shouted:

Scissors!

The tool flashed in the eyes of the bitten man, like a conjurer's. Philipp Philippovich climbed into the depths and, in several turns, tore out of Sharik's body his seminal glands with some fragments. Bormenthal, completely wet with zeal and excitement, rushed to a glass jar and removed from it other, wet, sagging seminal glands. In the hands of the professor and assistant, short, wet strings twitched and curled. The crooked needles in the clamps snapped fractionally, the seminal glands were sewn in place of the ball ones. The priest fell off the wound, poked a wad of gauze at it, and commanded:

Sew, doctor, skin instantly!

Then he looked back at the round white wall clock.

We did fourteen minutes, - Bormental let through clenched teeth and dug into the flabby skin with a crooked needle.

Then both became agitated, like murderers who are in a hurry.

Knife! shouted Philip Philipovich.

The knife jumped into his hands as if by itself, after which Philip Philipovich's face became terrible. He bared his porcelain and gold crowns and, with one stroke, brought a red crown on Sharik's forehead. The skin with shaved hair was thrown back like a scalp, and a bone skull was exposed. Philip Philipovich shouted:

Bormenthal gave him a shiny collar. Biting his lip, Philipp Philippovich began to stick a brace and drill small holes in Sharik's skull a centimeter apart, so that they went around the whole skull. He spent no more than five seconds on each. Then, with a saw of an unprecedented style, sticking its tail into the first hole, he began to saw, as they saw out a lady's needlework box. The skull squealed softly and shook. Three minutes later, the cover of the skull was removed from Sharik.

Then the dome of Sharikov's brain was exposed - gray with bluish streaks and reddish spots. Philipp Philippovich dug into the shells with scissors and cut them out. Once a thin fountain of blood hit, almost hit the professor's eyes and sprinkled his cap. Bormental with torsion tweezers, like a tiger, rushed to clamp and clamped. Sweat dripped from Bormental, and his face became fleshy and multicolored. His eyes darted from Philip Philipovich's hands to the plate on the table. Philip Philipovich became positively terrifying. A hiss escaped from his nose, his teeth opened to the gums. He peeled off the shell from the brain and went somewhere deeper, pushing the hemispheres of the brain out of the opened bowl. And at that moment Bormental began to turn pale, grabbed Sharik's chest with one hand and said hoarsely:

Pulse is dropping...

Philipp Philippovich looked back at him brutally, mumbled something, and crashed even deeper. Bormental broke a glass vial with a crunch, sucked it into a syringe, and treacherously pricked Sharik somewhere near his heart.

I'm going to the Turkish saddle, - growled Philipp Philippovich and with bloodied slippery gloves pushed Sharik's gray-yellow brain out of his head. For a moment he squinted his eyes at Sharik's muzzle, and Bormental immediately broke the second ampoule with the yellow liquid and pulled it out into a long syringe.

In heart? he asked timidly.

What else are you asking? the professor roared angrily. "He's died five times already, anyway." Colite! Is it conceivable! At the same time, his face became like that of an inspired robber.

The doctor with a swing, easily stuck a needle into the dog's heart.

He lives, but barely, - he whispered timidly.

There is no time to argue here - he lives, he does not live, - the terrible Philip Philipovich hissed, - and I'm in the saddle. He'll die anyway... oh, what are you... "To the banks of the sacred Nile..." Let's appendage!

Bormenthal gave him a flask in which a white lump dangled on a thread in liquid. With one hand ("He has no equal in Europe ... by God," Bormental thought vaguely) he snatched out a dangling lump, and with the other he cut out the same one in the depths somewhere between the stretched hemispheres. He threw a ball of balls onto a plate, and put a new one into the brain along with a thread and his short fingers, which had become miraculously thin and flexible, grabbed the amber thread to wrap it there. After that, he threw out of his head some kind of braces, tweezers, put the brain back into the bone bowl, leaned back and asked more calmly:

Died, of course?

Threadlike pulse, - answered Bormental.

More adrenaline.

The professor threw shells over the brain, applied the sawn-off lid, as if to measure, pulled the scalp and roared:

Bormenthal sewed up his head in about five minutes, breaking three needles.

And here on the pillow appeared on the blood-stained background the lifeless, extinct face of Sharik with a ring wound on his head. Immediately, Philip Philipovich fell off completely, like a well-fed vampire, tore off one glove, throwing a cloud of sweaty powder out of it, tore the other, threw it on the floor and rang, pressing a button in the wall. Zina appeared on the threshold, turning away so as not to see Sharik covered in blood.

The priest took off his bloody hood with his chalk hands and shouted:

Cigarette for me right now, 3ina. All fresh linen and bath.

He rested his chin on the edge of the table, parted the dog's right eyelid with two fingers, looked into the obviously dying eye, and said:

Here, damn it. Don't die. Well, it still sucks. Oh, Dr. Bormenthal, sorry for the dog, he was affectionate, but cunning.

Telegony - the inheritance of traits by a child from previous partners of the mother - refers to topics that are not customary to discuss aloud. It is believed that everything is clear. But upon closer examination, it turns out that everyone “understands” something of their own. Armed with trusted sources and common sense, we will try to reduce different ideas about telegony to a common (rational) denominator and listen modern science, which suddenly also has something new to say about this.

First, let's agree on terms. Surprisingly, there is already no unity here: according to the results of a query in Yandex, we see that various sources call telegony “science”, “concept”, “mystery of mankind” and even “a tool for improving species". We will focus on the "classic" version, which suggests that the previous sexual partner of the mother can somehow influence her offspring from the next one. Let us make it clear right away that we are not interested in the ethical aspects of this issue, but only in physiological and molecular mechanisms.

Rise and fall

The birth date of telegony as a concept can be considered 1868, when Charles Darwin (yes, yes, he also laid this foundation) in his book “Changing Animals and Plants in a Domestic State” provided various evidence of this phenomenon. Most of them were "eyewitness" stories obtained by Darwin through third parties, and therefore could not be a scientific argument. The only documented case that has since entered all popular texts is the story of Lord Morton's mare. In short, a mare of Arabian and English bloodlines was bred to a quagga (a now extinct subspecies of zebra) and produced offspring with characteristic stripes. The next time, already from a male of her breed, she again brought foals that outwardly resembled a quagga. The situation repeated itself eight years later: in the absence of a quagga stallion, striped children were again born.

People of that time did not find anything surprising in this story, but after Darwin's book, scientists actively argued about it: can the properties of the first male be transmitted to offspring from the second? Boom scientific research Telegony came at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century, with numerous hypotheses and experiments to test them. However, no experiment could confirm this phenomenon. Neither rats, nor flies, nor even horses agreed to inherit traits in such an unusual way. By the middle of the century, attempts to find scientific explanation ended, the debate about telegony went underground and from the pages scientific journals moved to amateur forums. It would seem that the topic is closed and the point is set. But it was not there.

folk wisdom

One of the most popular search engines for scientific literature - Pubmed - offers only eight links to articles on request telegony, thus hinting that the topic is not relevant and widely researched. At the same time, Yandex produces three million results, of which the first is "Wikipedia" (where telegony is called "a debunked and outdated concept"), and all subsequent ones lead to sites and forums full of controversy and reflection. As a rule, on such sites, the authors conclude that the relevant theory is "controversial", "shrouded in mystery", or "scientists do not know enough about how our genes work." There are, of course, those who consider telegony unambiguously proven.

However, judging by the messages on the forums, people are making attempts to rationally fit telegony into their picture of the world. In particular, they are interested in how long the phenomenon of telegonia lasts (is it possible to exhaust the effect in the first few pregnancies), whether barrier methods of contraception prevent it (the question arises about the nature of the transmitted properties and the physical dimensions of their carriers) and what to do with kisses (after all, this is also mixing liquids). You can think of many more equally intriguing questions about this phenomenon, but messages on the forums anticipate even the wildest fantasies. Thus, the author of this article was surprised to learn about the existence of "male telegony" and that a husband's betrayal can lead to the birth of a child by a legal wife, similar to the mistress of an unfaithful spouse.

Note that, just like in Darwin's book, all the arguments, facts and life stories given on the websites are in the nature of oral messages and are not confirmed by any evidence. scientific descriptions or medical certificates. The only modern scientific argument that most authors make is a 2014 paper in which a telegony-like phenomenon was shown in the flies Telostylinus angusticollis. Females were mated sequentially with two males, and it turned out that the size of the offspring depends on the size of the first male. And here we are not even interested in the fact that the authors of the texts on the sites are quite satisfied with such remote evidence. It is much more surprising that for some reason scientists have returned to a long-abandoned topic, which means that not everything is really known about it.

Word to scientists

First, let's figure out what really happened to Lord Morton's mare. Over the years, it is not easy to verify the purity of this experiment. However, even if we assume that the message is true, it is possible to find explanations for this phenomenon that do not involve telegony. So, associate professor of the Department of Genetics, Moscow State University. M. V. Lomonosov Andrey Sinyushin believes that the stripes that appeared in the offspring of the mare are only one of the manifestations of variability. He gives peacocks as an example. There is a population of albino white peacocks on the island of Java, but in a European zoo an albino chick can be born to an ordinary peacock, which does not mean that its distant white counterpart is somehow involved here. The same story with the horse and the quagga. In horses, coloring in the form of stripes is found, but it is extremely rare, which cannot be said about quaggs. AND amazing story with striped foals, it was much easier to ascribe to an unknown phenomenon than to a rare but possible set of circumstances.

The explanation of the fly story is perhaps a bit more complicated. Indeed, the size of the first partner determines the size of the children from the second partner. Formally, this phenomenon can be attributed to telegony. But by transmission hereditary information cannot be named, because the effect is achieved due to the proteins of the seminal fluid, which remain in the body of the female and act on immature eggs, stimulating their growth or the redistribution of resources. It is hardly possible to conclude on this basis that in other animals, and even more so in humans, this mechanism will also work.

But in fact, modern scientists know much more about telegony than it seems. However, they prefer to use the term "non-Mendelian inheritance" so as not to be misunderstood. In connection with the development molecular methods v Lately increased interest in alternative methods of transferring information between organisms. And here is what was found.

In the heart forever

By the way, the spermatozoa themselves also actively capture nucleic acids from environment and transferred to the egg during fertilization. Therefore, it can be assumed that if the extracellular DNA of the first partner remains, for example, on the wall of the oviduct, then the sperm of the second partner is able to absorb it and transfer it to the future embryo.

Moreover, it has been repeatedly observed that spermatozoa can penetrate into the somatic (non-sex) cells of the body. Sperms can engulf immune system cells, and they can also fuse with cells that line the genital tract. Thus, it is possible that each partner remains, if not in the heart, then at least in the walls of the woman's genital tract. And then the cells formed as a result of such a fusion (that is, chimeric) cells can continue to secrete extracellular DNA obtained from the previous partner and influence the spermatozoa of the next one.

All the best for children
The organisms of the mother and fetus are in a very close relationship. In a certain sense, the embryo acts like a sponge and absorbs everything from its microenvironment. This process may start at a very early stage: scientists have found multiple DNA breaks in mammalian zygotes, which means at the cellular level that a foreign piece of DNA can fit between the ends of the break. In this case, we will talk about the full transfer of genetic information.

Then the zygote develops into a fetus and the mother begins to “feed” it with the contents of her bloodstream, that is, cells and molecules. A child at this age is still eating very well. Therefore, in addition to the usual cells of the mother, chimeric cells that result from the absorption of foreign DNA or fusion with the sperm of the previous partner can enter his body. And, of course, a large genetic cocktail is formed in the blood from extracellular DNA isolated by ordinary mother cells, chimeric cells and spermatozoa. The cells of the embryo can hypothetically capture all this DNA. This mechanism is difficult to consider as the inheritance of genetic information by a child from a non-father, since not all cells of the fetus will carry this information. But theoretically, this could affect the properties of the embryo, for example, if foreign DNA were integrated into actively dividing cells and would be preserved in all their descendants.

Who sits in someone's liver

The mother and the fetus are in constant cellular exchange. The cells of the mother are embedded in the tissues of the fetus, at the same time, the cells of the fetus settle in the mother's organs. Both organisms become chimeric. What is characteristic, it is absolutely unimportant how the pregnancy ends. Even with abortions and miscarriages, if they occur at a sufficiently late stage, the cells of the fetus have time to colonize the mother's body. Separately, it is worth noting the phenomenon of the “disappearing twin” - at the same time, one of the twin embryos survives, while the other resolves, but also often leaves its cellular trace.

It's easy to guess what happens next. Among the maternal cells that populate the tissues of the fetus, there may be cells of his older brothers and sisters - both existing and unborn. And if they were conceived from another father, then the fetus receives someone else's genetic information. Finally, let's not forget the extracellular DNA that all these cells continue to secrete.

These constant migrations of cells and molecules, imperceptible at first glance, bring unexpected results. Scientists in several studies looked in women, girls and female fetuses in the blood and tissues for fragments of the Y chromosome (this is called male microchimerism). And they found that someone - in 14%, and someone - as much as 75%. In all cases, it was obvious that the subjects were not sick with genetic diseases and the Y-chromosome was not present in all cells. The causes of microchimerism are called previous pregnancies (in women) or the presence of older brothers (in girls and fetuses). Another factor, which, however, has nothing to do with telegony, was blood transfusion, because it also carries extracellular DNA with it. However, even all of the above factors taken together do not explain all cases of male microchimerism. We have to assume that there are still some roundabout, unknown ways in which the Y chromosome enters the female body.

Here it is necessary to pay attention to the fact that the Y-chromosome was chosen for the study of microchimerism as the simplest object. This is a large section of DNA that is guaranteed not to occur in the female body, so it is easy to detect there. In order to identify foreign DNA from other chromosomes, a much more complex and detailed analysis will be required. One can imagine how much foreign genetic material actually ends up in a woman's body if the Y chromosome alone is found in such quantities! By the way, it is obvious that the same mechanisms should work in male children and they should also become chimeras, it's just much more difficult to show.

Keep calm

Perhaps by the time you've read this far, you're feeling a little uneasy. You are not alone: ​​the author of this text also fidgeted nervously in his chair, sorting through contemporary articles. Nevertheless, we are sure: everything is not so scary! And that's why.

First, all of the above events are unlikely. Each of them (for example, the fusion of a spermatozoon with a somatic cell or the absorption of fragments of extracellular DNA by the cell) was shown only in a small percentage of cases. We see that for a full transfer of information about the properties of the previous partner to the offspring from the subsequent partner, several such unlikely events must occur, which means that the total probability is even less. Fortunately for us, the human body works as a biological, not a mathematical system. And from the fact that some phenomenon can theoretically take place, it does not follow at all that this really happens.

Secondly, not a single case of telegonia in humans, and even in mammals, has been reliably recorded. On the this moment our knowledge of such cases is limited to insects. Scientific papers only offer us accurate data about bits and pieces of a possible process that can be regarded simply as interesting features of our physiology. We should not think that we have adaptations for non-Mendelian inheritance of traits. For example, if sperm cells merge with somatic cells, it is hardly because it is necessary for something, but, most likely, simply because they can.

Third, the transfer of DNA does not necessarily entail the inheritance of a trait. A piece of DNA can carry meaningful information, or it can represent a piece of a gene or a non-coding region. And then its presence will not affect the cell in any way, not to mention the body. Moreover, the absorption of DNA into a cell does not mean that this DNA will function. To do this, she needs to integrate into certain parts of the chromosome or attract a lot of proteins responsible for reading information. Finally, even if this foreign DNA is integrated into the chromosome and starts working there, in most cases it will turn out to be some kind of protein that is an intermediate link in the metabolism or transmission of information in the cell, and we will never know about it. The probability that this protein will turn out to be the One responsible for an easily recognizable trait (eye or skin color), and even not found in the official parents of the child, is vanishingly small.

But here's what we think is really important. This story is not about why you should not be afraid of telegonia, even if it suddenly happens. This story is about the fact that our organisms are connected with each other a little more closely than we used to think. Apparently, we regularly exchange DNA and cells with each other, often without knowing it. Probably, each of us carries a lot more alien than it seems. Our body is not a completely closed system from the outside world. And, as long as this system works well, there may be some benefit in its openness. Or, by at least, no big trouble.

All my life I was haunted by the idea whose genes I inherited. I don’t look like anyone - neither my mother, nor my father, nor my grandparents, they are all brown-eyed, swarthy. One grandmother is a gypsy (foundling), the other is Jewish. On my mother - rather ephemeral, in manners, in her voice, she is bright, dark, with a nose - a beauty, and I have some kind of separate nose, and eyes like stuffed pike perch. If you look closely, then the grandfather on the maternal side has something, either an oval face, or cheekbones, but again - where are the eyes so characteristic - bulging, light, with swollen lower eyelids? Why such a high forehead and incomprehensible nose? Somehow I inherited the same, right? In short, I'm in discord, gewalt!
However, according to my biological dad, my paternal grandfather was not even my grandmother's husband, but Mikhail Sholokhov.
Papinka's drunken confession, made ten years ago during our chance meeting in a bar (before that, I saw him once in my life, when I was 15, and I needed permission to travel abroad) did not impress me at all. Then his mother just died, and he revealed to me a terrible secret that Valentina Abramovna told him on her deathbed. I thought that a) the dude did drink, b) I have too good taste to fall for this Santa Barbara, what kind of dying revelations are these, c) this schmuck doesn’t pull on Sholokhov’s son, d) he’s ashamed and lies to I was proud to be related to him. Like a black sheep, even a tuft of wool. I thought and forgot.
Once I mentioned this in a conversation (within the framework of a bugag), while visiting a friend, so her husband, who is fond of the Sholokhov question (he wrote something about him and the disputes around his personality and literary blacks), is a historian and is fond of genealogy, suddenly jumped up and started reserchit. Found that it could very well be. He advised me to look at the pictures, because - one person. Well, then he started a song that I should dig, check DNA, challenge something there (I don’t know what - copyright, inheritance - sha for nonsense). I didn’t look again, because the man is groovy, the topic is just him.
But yesterday it came together - I was again visiting a friend (with another friend), and again mentioned the topic, and her husband suddenly went overboard, and he began to excitedly say that it was necessary to take some steps, because I very similar. And here I am, having nothing to do, sat down to dig. She opened the photographs of Sholokhov and was stunned. Mother is honest. It is me. These are my eyes, my forehead, though sloping, but also high. And in general the general similarity.
Today I told my mother (I didn’t tell her before, because I once promised her never to mention my dad, and I kept my word). Mom was skeptical about this news (because my father has been peeing all his life), I sent her a photo and my mother said: “Wait a minute ... You know ... It's interesting the girls are dancing ... Your eyes, Katyusha " .
And for the first time, I seriously considered this possibility. Why, if daddy didn’t compose drunk, then purkua wouldn’t be pa?)))