Violence alters human genes for generations, researchers discover

In 1982, the Syrian government besieged the city of Hama, killing tens of thousands of its own citizens in sectarian violence. Four decades later, rebels used the memory of the massacre to help inspire the toppling of the Assad family that had overseen the operation.

But there is another lasting effect of the attack, hidden deep in the genes of Syrian families. The grandchildren of women who were pregnant during the siege — grandchildren who never experienced such violence themselves — nonetheless bear marks of it in their genomes. Passed down through their mothers, this genetic imprint offers the first human evidence of a phenomenon previously documented only in animals: The genetic transmission of stress across generations.

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