Ribbon meaning: childhood cancer (alternative color: pink), prostate cancer, Trisomy 18, and scleroderma. Dark Blue: knowledge, power, integrity, and seriousness. Ribbon meaning: arthritis, child abuse prevention, victim's rights, free speech, water quality, and water safety. Brown: stability, masculine qualities.
But, it was not until the early 1900s that any scientific studies were done of the phenomenon. Austrian naturalist Konrad Lorenz became the first to codify and establish the science behind the imprinting process. Lorenz found that when young birds came out of their eggs they would become attached to the first moving object they encountered. In most cases in the wild, that would be their mother.
Genomic imprinting. Genomic imprinting is an epigenetic phenomenon that causes genes to be expressed in a parent-of-origin-specific manner. Forms of genomic imprinting have been demonstrated in fungi, plants and animals. As of 2014, there are about 150 imprinted genes known in the mouse and about half that in humans. Genomic imprinting is an inheritance process independent of the classical Mendelian inheritance.