Marisa Bartolomei, a professor of developmental biology at the University of Pennsylvania who studies genomic imprinting, highlighted the study’s “clever and creative” design. “This is the first time we’ve seen that the genes of the fetus affect parental care, irrespective of the mother’s genes,” says Bartolomei, who was not involved in the research. “This isn’t an idea that [many scientists] have talked about.”

Read the Smithsonian Magazine article here.