>Could you explain what you mean a bit more by saying that you can induce a
>"phenotypic" change? If you are intending to use term "phenotypic"
>according to how it is defined in genetics then I do not understand how
>you can say you can change your phenotype. For someone to say that he or
>she can change their phenotype is to say that blue eyes can be changed to
>brown.

Mike,

Your phenotype is your observable physical or biochemical characteristics determined by your genotype and environmental influences.

First a very basic example;
The bacteria Serratia marcescans is red at room temp and white at 37 C.

Now obviously a human is much more complex, and we have thousands of genes that change do to the environment.  Now it is easy to only think of eye color, or blood type because a fixed trait is easy for a genetics teacher to get there point across.

But...
Most anyone can change their alcohol tolerance; a very observable phenotype; by consuming alcohol at greater quantities over a period of time.  Of course this is because they're inducing the increased production of alcohol dehydrogenase.  So the environment of drinking alters the phenotype.  Muscle growth, loss.  Bone growth, loss.  Obesity, skinnyness.  None of these traits are fixed.  My eye color has changed slightly.  Most peoples hair color is unlike what they were born with.  If you really want to go nitty gritty with phenotype you can discuss hair and nail length, surgeries, diseases, intelligence(very scary area), emotions ; basically in any possible way your genome can interact with the environment a phenotype can be attempted to be described.


Later
Eric

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