instead of exercising?

Well, if so, scientific research suggests

that your genes might be to blame.

Hi, I'm Cristen Conger, of Stuff Mom Never Told You, for D News.

And in 2013, research on genes-- or the cellular instruction

manuals we inherit from our parents--

offered some fascinating insights

into how those nifty DNA packages may influence

our daily habits and behaviors.

For starters, researchers out of the University of Missouri

pinpointed a set of 36 genes that

might determine how much or little we love to exercise.

After noticing how some lab rats voluntarily

jogged on their wheels while others

took it easy inside their cages, the researchers

bred 10 generations of the active and not-so-active rats,

and found that the physical activity gap persisted

between those groups of great, great, great, and so forth rat

grandchildren.

And the most noticeable difference

between those two groups-- those 36 laziness genes.

Now in the future, though, we might

have a work-around those so-called laziness genes

thanks to PLIN2, better known as the obesity gene.

A promising study published in early 2013 detailed

how turning off that PLIN2 genetic expression halted

weight gain, and increased activity levels in rats,

even when they were being that high fat diets.

Next up, scientists plan to figure out

the physiological mechanisms behind that obesity gene,

and how it might work in humans.

Now recent digging into our DNA has revealed not only insights

into our physical health, but also our emotional health.

For the first time, in 2013, researchers from UC Berkeley

and Northwestern University identified a gene variant,

or allele, that appeared to mediate

husbands' and wives' emotional sensitivity to relationship ups

and downs.

Specifically, the people who inherited two short versions

of this marital bliss gene tended

to report more relationship highs and lows, whereas those

with long versions of the genes were more even keeled

over the long term.

Now undoubtedly, some couples with kids

may experience more emotional highs

than lows due to a newly discovered gene that

triggers early, or precocious, puberty.

According to a 2013 study published in the New England

Journal of Medicine, a genetic mutation passed along

by fathers may cause reproductive hormones

to activate in kids younger than nine years old, which

can lead to health complications later in life, not

to mention a prolonged period of hormone-related adolescent

angst.

And finally, as a rare south paw,

I was interested to learn about a possible genetic explanation

for handedness.

It turns out that right handedness, at least,

may root back to embryonic genes that organize our organs,

and help our bodies develop symmetrically.

But unfortunately, we'll have to wait until 2014

or later to get to the bottom of why some of us

go left instead of right.

But enough about me, what about you?

What kinds of DNA discoveries are you

hoping to see in the future?

Tell me in the comments below, and be sure to check out

my channel-- youtube.com/stuffmomnevertoldyou--

and be sure to subscribe here for more D News.