‘Our destiny is not fixed’

Doctoring in the genes

Dr. Bob Lahita ran New Jersey’s top hospitals and ambulance services, operated a triage unit on the ground in NJ on 9/11, authored a library of medical volumes, cared for my late husband and I know him half a century. His new book’s ­“Destiny, the New Genetics, and Your Future.”

Lahita: “Popes to presidents want to know about sickness and incapacity. ‘Epigenetics,’ a collection of light switches, means genes are fingers. Parental wiring. A pregnant mother’s diet can affect a child’s health. Cigarettes, pollution, stress, nutrition, toxins affect subsequent generations. Forget genes but changed behavior can influence the onset and course of disease. Our destiny is not fixed.

“A clinician and researcher, I know health can influence future generations. It can explain autoimmunity diseases like ­depression, cancers. Grandma’s stress, what she ate or smoked can influence her grandchildren. Data is explaining issues of legitimate sources to support understanding of human behavior — and mental diseases including possibly gender dysphoria. Even autism could possibly be the result of an environment effect.

“Artificial intelligence can now detect epigenetic markers on DNA that alter gene expression. Using AI to search for epigenetic markers and add or subtract them from future genomes will likely be possible.”

I can’t understand all Lahita says. I only hope he doesn’t charge me when next I need him.

Seeking wisdom in the stars

What they are saying:

Sharon Stone: “Women who lie about their age are stupid. It’s appalling. So when a 40-year-old says she’s 30, I want to go, ‘Well, honey, then you need a face-lift because you’re looking really bad.’ ”

Warren Beatty: “In my 20s and 30s, I thought certain things were irresistible. Also into my 40s. And then into my 50s. Being adolescent never got boring to me.”

Diane von Furstenberg: “I was once diagnosed with cancer of the palate of my mouth and at the base of my tongue. It then cleared up completely. I never smoked cigarettes so it was a surprising thing to get. Must’ve happened because I smoked so much pot.”

When she was a dental assistant, Debi Mazar moved in with then-unknown Jean-Michel Basquiat: “We roomed together. I was 16. Artwork he gave me was that he painted my refrigerator inside and out with his stick figures. I loved the artwork so I hung onto the refrigerator.”

Jane Fonda: “When Ted Turner and I were courting it was at a sound-and-light show in Athens, Greece, that I had my first hot flash. It was dramatic. Kind of exciting.”

Pete Seeger: “Like William Randolph Hearst and Eugene O’Neill, I dropped out of Harvard. Shocked me was that after departing Harvard, I got an alumni fund-raising letter. Harvard didn’t care that I dropped out. They still wanted my money even if I hated them.”

Tom Cruise’s ex Mimi Rogers: “I’m a babe so I don’t worry too much about age. But when Gwyneth Paltrow gets cast as Michael Douglas’ wife in ‘A Perfect Murder’ I think, ‘Why should a girl even be 18? Why not a 3-year-old? That should work.’ ”

With the tight tight short short snug snug low low backless and sideless cut dresses of today, if a female wants her appendix taken out — but doesn’t want it to show — they’ll have to remove it through her nostril.

Only in America, kids, only in America.