There is this story about the Nobel winning physicist Richard Feynman where he is talking to an artist friend about a flower and the artist says “I as an artist can see how beautiful this is but you as a scientist take this all apart and it becomes a dull thing.”
Feyman replied “I see much more about the flower than he sees. I could imagine the cells in there, the complicated actions inside, which also have a beauty. I mean it’s not just beauty at this dimension, at one centimeter; there’s also beauty at smaller dimensions, the inner structure, also the processes. The fact that the colors in the flower evolved in order to attract insects to pollinate it is interesting; it means that insects can see the color. All kinds of interesting questions which the science knowledge only adds to the excitement, the mystery and the awe of a flower.”
This is how I felt when I studied microbiology in the hot springs in Yellowstone National Park and visitors would comment that it was “neat “or “pretty”, while I knew a million different levels about the geology and chemistry and biology of the hot springs. And so it goes when you are a biologist and have a baby – your appreciation is that much deeper.
One of the coolest things we have noticed about Axel is that his breathing syncs up perfectly with our heart rate when he rests against our chest. He really seems to love sleeping this way—my theory is that if he “outsources” regulating his breathing to his parents, then his nervous system can concentrate on other things like learning. I’ve heard that a similar thing happens with classical music.
For example, he spins his legs really fast circles, just like I did 100 million times as a professional cyclist.
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If you are holding Axel, he knows when you are walking and when you are sitting down, so don’t try to just wiggle him a little while you are seated he will fuss until you stand up and carry him. We wondered why it wasn’t good enough for him just to be held, and it turns out we are right back to the heart rate response. Being carried calms babies by lowering their heart rate, a response seen among other mammals as well.
When Axel was born he was long and skinny and really strong. (Our evidence for his strength? All the doctors say so, plus he could scoot across the table in his first week). So why did he get strong in the womb instead of fat? Heidi is tiny (5’2”) and maybe he was really cramped in the womb and was constantly pushing against the walls so he could stretch out a little. Or maybe he knew he could devote more energy to building muscle than putting on fat stores because Heidi was relaxing and eating well and meditating all the time which would send signals of environmental security.
A new branch of science is the study of epigenetics, “the study of changes in organisms caused by modification of gene expression rather than alteration of the genetic code itself”.
Basically scientists have discovered that it’s not just the DNA that changes how you look and act, but also the methylation patterns on your DNA that causes it to be read differently. Like if you blacked out some words on the page in a book, it would read differently. So far there haven’t been any human epigenetic studies beyond disease related effects. Which leads me to have lots of theories about what changes in my life and methylation pattern might affect Axel’s gene expression. For example, he spins his legs really fast circles, just like I did 100 million times as a professional cyclist. He’s also really calm, and Heidi and I spent thousands of hours meditating. Is it correlation or causation? If there is something to it, what are you doing right now in your life that could affect your future children’s epigenetics?
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Some observations and questions that I put in my “baby laboratory notebook”:
-Axel gets weirdly quiet when he is on the changing table. He will be in the middle of crying and nothings seems to make him stop so I’ll be like, “Let’s go change your diaper! “
-Axel’s poop smells like cheerios. Is this milk related?
-At one point during the pregnancy both Heidi and I had the intuition that she needed to eat more orange foods for Axel (It just so happens that my favorite color is orange.) I’ve heard of women wanting to eat dirt during pregnancy. How do they even know dirt will be good for them if they haven’t eaten it before? Heidi’s weird pregnancy food was Sauerkraut and meat (she is now a vegetarian.)
-Axel gets fussy right before he falls asleep for the night. Why don’t babies naturally know how to put themselves to sleep?
-Swooping the baby around makes him stop crying. Does this reset his thought patterns?
-Babies’ eyes don’t work in stereo so everything they see is in two dimensions for a while. That’s why they love it so much when you go closer and farther away. Is there an ideal distance for facial recognition?
-Does Axel have any sensory misunderstanding? Babies can have synesthesia—where they taste color and see sounds when their brains are developing and are experiencing abstract concepts for the first time. Our friend’s baby licks only red colored things—does red taste better?
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Has knowing more about biology made me a better parent? Maybe, and it has certainly led me to appreciate and be more involved in the parenting process. Being a scientist has led me to come up with little games to test his level of development, especially physical development around balance and strength. To the parents out there: What experiments have you run on your kids? For everyone: What was something that became even cooler for you the more you learned about it?
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Photo: Getty Images