Hackers' Pub

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`from:` handle	Finds content written by the specified user.	`from:hongminhee` `from:hongminhee@hollo.social`
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`#` tag	Finds content with the specified tag. Case-insensitive.	`#HackersPub`
condition condition	Finds content that satisfies both conditions on either side of the space (logical AND).	`"Hackers' Pub" lang:en`
condition `OR` condition	Finds content that satisfies at least one of the conditions on either side of the OR operator (logical OR).	`#HackersPub OR "Hackers' Pub" lang:en`
`(` condition `)`	Combines the operators within the parentheses first.	`(#HackersPub OR "Hackers' Pub" OR "Hackers Pub") lang:en`

John Carlos Baez @johncarlosbaez@mathstodon.xyz

1/6/2026, 9:20:34 AM

Public

Biology is so wild. It doesn't respect the rules we make up.

We all know children inherit genes from their parents. But it turns out mothers also inherit cells from their children!

And this can help them, promoting the healing of wounds. (But it may also hurt them, causing autoimmune disorders.)

For more, read this:

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-04102-4

Text from this article: www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-04102-4

Then, in 1969, a team studying immunity in pregnant people detected white blood cells that contained the Y chromosome in the blood of individuals who would eventually give birth to boys1. For more than two decades, it was presumed that these microchimeric cells were a temporary feature of pregnancy. It wasn’t until 1993 that geneticist Diana Bianchi found cells with Y chromosomes in women who had given birth to sons between one and 27 years earlier2.

This finding overturned the dogma that children inherit genes from their parents and never the other way around — these transferred fetal cells move through the family tree, travelling ‘backwards in time’ from children to their mothers. Bianchi and others would go on to show that these cells have remarkable regenerative properties — promoting wound healing in mothers by transforming into blood vessels or skin cells.

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