July 5, 2015

Just one more aspect of global warming you might want to worry about.

"The researchers showed that by incubating the bearded dragon’s eggs in very warm temperatures (above 89.6 degrees) you can trigger them to reverse sex."
When the sex-reversed females mated with “normal” male lizards, the sex of the offspring was entirely determined by egg incubation temperature, rather than chromosomes....

“If you’re a he-she animal – with male sex chromosomes, but reproducing as a female – you actually laid nearly twice as many eggs as a regular female”... [said] Clare Holleley, of Canberra University... worr[ying] about how creatures will adapt to rapid global climate change....

According to the authors of the study, the lizards who exhibited sex reversal were better mothers than the genetic females.... The climate changes caused by global warming affects the entire lizard population in such a way that the sex of the lizards may no longer be determined by the genetic signals of chromosomes, but by the temperature.

30 comments:

s'opihjerdt said...

OJ's lawyer's widow's husband's changes were caused by global warming!?!?!?

Jane the Actuary said...

The article doesn't say what the current normal temperature, and typical temperature variability is. Are these conditions that are likely, under various global warming projections? Or are they wholly artificial and meaningless?

Original Mike said...

I'm going to choose not to worry about this.

Bruce Hayden said...

I think the warmist fanatics are getting desperate. The more evidence that comes out that AGW is a scam, the more dire their predictions. But this prediction may just fai herel, with with everyone being told that it is transphobic to continue to call Bruce Jenner byhisbirthname.

Paco Wové said...

"According to the authors of the study, the lizards who exhibited sex reversal were better mothers than the genetic females"

This seems a nonsensical statement, as lizards in general provide little to no maternal care at all. I don't think the species in question here is any different.

What their data apparently showed was that these temperature-determined females laid significantly more eggs than chromosomal females, so the quoted conclusion only makes sense if "better mother" == "pumping out the most offspring".

Gotta advance The Narrative one way or another, I guess.

traditionalguy said...

This explains the South. It's the heat and humidity that makes the men men and the women good looking.

PoNyman said...

Bearded Dragon is delicious.

Bob Boyd said...

The Texas alligator attack was caused by global warming. If wasn't so hot the guy might have been able to resist swimming.

William said...

I see an interesting plot twist in next season's Game of Thrones.

Bob Boyd said...

I'll start to worry when it's so hot the Bearded Dragons are shaving.

n.n said...

They forgot to qualify "global warming" with "anthropogenic". Are they claiming that it is naturally occurring? Recurring, really.

lizards who exhibited sex reversal were better mothers than the genetic females

War on female lizards.

incubating the bearded dragon’s eggs in very warm temperatures (above 89.6 degrees)

Female humans incubate their eggs, clump of cells, etc., at relatively catastrophic temperatures (around 98 degrees). I wonder if bearded dragons would mutate to become humans with catastrophic anthropogenic global warming.

walter said...

"They forgot to qualify "global warming" with "anthropogenic"."

Well..you know..it's one of those "If you have to ask.." kind of assumptions that if questioned risks the "anti-science, denier" labels. But it does remind me of those that abbreviate both legal and illegal immigration to "immigration". As in "We are a nation of immigrants". Yes..but...

Fernandinande said...

This is not news; it's clickbait feeding off the popularity of some peoples' psycho-sexual problems, delightfully combined with climate nonsense.

While chromosomes determine the initial gender[sic] of mammals and birds, environmental or epigenetic factors determine the gender[sic] of many other animals, including some reptiles, invertebrates and amphibians.

(As per "Jurassic Park", and the all-one-sex [forget which one] animals changing sex and reproducing because they had frog DNA).

Anonymous said...

I'll start worrying about man-made climate change when the proponents of it explain how cavemen managed to cause warming severe enough to melt the glaciers covering most of Canada and a nice chunk of the US about 12000 years ago.

kcom said...

"I'm going to choose not to worry about this."

I'm not even going to waste the effort choosing. I'm just not going to worry about it.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Aaaaaah - sex, schmex. Who needs life on the planet anyway! Damn SJW life-lovers! Fuck them!

Turn the world into a rocky lifeless ball and be done with it already! Leave the people to scurry and scrounge and pirate like in a Mad Max movie! That's the kind of societal and natural ideal conservatives should stand for!

Fernandinande said...

From 2000: Temperature-dependent sex determination in reptiles

MaxedOutMama said...

That just seems a straightforward species adaptation to good times/bad times. In the good times breed more; in the bad times breed less but increase genetic diversity to maximize adaptive potential.

There are a number of animals who breed parthogenetically or sex-switch, including fish and numerous amphibian and reptile species.

The oddest thing about this study's assertion is that we are not now, as compared to the history of the Holocene, in either a period of rapid climate change or a particularly warm period.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Holocene_Temperature_Variations.png

It was sharply warmer than it is now 8000 years ago. One would expect that many species would be able to prosper at somewhat warmer temps than today's, but it seems fallacious in the extreme to think that a reversion to temperatures more like those of 8K-4K years before present would be disastrous for species that have prospered during the Holocene.


n.n said...

walter:

As if they are trying to conflate two separable ideas/hypotheses: anthropogenic and natural.

Have they tried embedding bearded dragon eggs in human womb banks to produce trans-humans? CAGW is predicted to cause a global temperature variation of 2 degrees, but CAWC (Catastrophic Anthropogenic Womb Change) would cause a temperature spike of around 10 degrees.

exhelodrvr1 said...

So Bruce Jenner ...

Gahrie said...

According to the authors of the study, the lizards who exhibited sex reversal were better mothers than the genetic females

Yeah but first the important stuff...what type of shirts were they wearing?

Fernandinande said...

According to the authors of the study, the lizards who exhibited sex reversal were better mothers than the genetic females....

Since lizards don't do much, if any, "mothering", that got me curious. Here's what they were (purposely) mis-describing:

"Also, sex-reversed mothers lay nearly twice as many eggs per year as control ZW mothers – which may lead to an excess of females in the population."

Rusty said...

traditionalguy said...
This explains the South. It's the heat and humidity that makes the men men and the women good looking.

I don't know if it's the south, but I think it's the humidiy, or th moisture in the air. I spent a lot of time in Newfoundland, Canada and I found the women there seemed to have fewer skin problems and just appeared to have healthier skin. The Scotts, Irish, English heritage didn't hurt either.

Rusty said...

Lizards?
Who gives a fuck about lizards.
Get back to me if cheerleaders become threatened.

Anonymous said...

Why all the blather about global warming?

Or global cooling?

Or climate change?

It's all evolution and will happen. Evolution is an unstoppable force. I can't even help writing this right now.

n.n said...

In some species, including most mammals and insects, sex is determined solely by chromosomes; in other species, sex is a matter of environmental conditions.
-- Environmental Sex Determination

Of chemistry and blueprints. Lizards' protein structures are more vulnerable to mutation with environmental, and, in this case, temperature variability. The research is advising appropriate roles for trans individuals in order to optimize their fitness in a population.

Humans exhibit greater variability than animals and plants through expression of greater degrees of conscious selection.

n.n said...

eric:

Evolution is a physical process with a chaotic behavior. Evolution is only unstoppable by virtue that it reflects a causative force greater in magnitude and scope than that expressed by human consciousness. Humans can and do operate and moderate evolution in limited frames of reference, typically quasi-stable states. That is to say, there are both evolutionary and conscious fitness functions, where the former is assumed and observed to mask the latter, including the modulation of global systems.

Rusty said...

So. The NOAA, not taking the current state of climate change for granted,about ten years ago decided to emplace new sensors accross our great nation. These new sensors are in very remote areas. Far from any urban pollution. They measure climate parameters in sveral different ways.
They have shown, for the past ten years, there has been no warming.

Alexander said...

When the glaciers of Asia melt and cause a hundred million refugees, I will worry about lizard demographics.

walter said...

"Get back to me if cheerleaders become threatened."

Remember the prominence of cheerleaders in football broadcasts of yore? Seem endangered now...by hot air.