Ask Ms. Jessica Issue 43 – Mutations before birth and after death (Patreon)

(The content for Ask Ms. Jessica comes from real questions from real people sent to AskMsJessica@gmail.com)

Hello doctor,

First question, is there a specific age when mutations occur?

Can there be mutations before birth and / or after death?

Finally, with COVID going around, does being sick increase the chance of mutation, or alter mutations in any way?

Antruck

Ah a couple questions to answer.

First, as I said in my research papers before, there is no specific age when mutations occur. Mutations are caused by epigenetic shifts in people who carry the mutant gene. Changing body chemistry, like puberty or menopause, can increase the likelihood that such shifts will occur, but mutations are not at all on a clock.

That being said, yes, there can be both. Let’s talk about mutations before birth first. Mutations occur by your genetic machinery reading parts of your genetic code that weren’t supposed to be read and, in a sense, interpreting them in new ways. This can, in fact, happen as you are a developing fetus. It is much more likely to happen if you come from mutant parents, of course, but the chance is always there. So yes, mutant babies are born all the time.

As for after death, as far as I know there are no mutant zombies out there. Calm down, it’s not Halloween yet. However, human cellular activity does continue for a while after death. While brain activity might stop and organ function might stop or slow, individual cellular activity continues on in certain parts of the body as you decompose. So, yes, there is a chance of posthumous mutation, however unlikely. At that point, most cells are just looking for a way to survive the death of the greater organism though, so many mutations actually accelerate decomposition, usually into amorphous cellular structures, or what most people would call “slimes” or “oozes.”

And yes, being sick can increase the risk of mutation. As I said before, mutations are caused my massive changes in body chemistry that cause the mutant gene to allow your genetic machinery to read genetic code outside of its normal boundaries. Anything form stress to disease can cause such a thing. It’s unlikely for disease to cause “defective” mutations, but there is a theory that mutations caused from diseases do have a correlation with new physical attributes that help fend off said disease. This is not yet scientifically proven, however. More research is needed.

Dr. Jessica Park

AskMsJessica@gmail.com