Global warming COULD SHRINK THE HUMAN RACE
Modern mammals, including humans, could be at risk of shrinking as a result of global warming, just as teeny prehistoric horses shrank to an even smaller size when temperatures rose 56 million years ago. Modern Morgan horse (left) thinks about eating teeny Sifrhippus (right) Modern Morgan horse (left) thinks about eating teeny …
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Re: Re: Utter Testicles
You might have missed the somewhat salient fact that dinosaurs are extinct, i.e. were cold-blooded - there's a grammar nazi when you needn't one
Re: Re: Utter Testicles
I'll repeat this as you obviously missed it:
Elephants are large and the Serengeti is damn hot.
I've never seen a camel the size of a chihuahua and it gets over 50 celsius in the Sahara.
These are both mammals the last time I looked or has taxonomy taken some weird twist and classified them as cephalopoda while I was holidaying on the Moon ?
This paper deserves star billing on http://www.badscience.net/ as it's complete and utter crap.
Re: Re: Re: Utter Testicles
What's your day job Evil Auditor ?
What ever it is, stick to it as your not going to be able to feed your family if you take up a comedy career.
Re: Re: Re: Utter Testicles
To respond to your two points:
Elephants, and other large animals living in a similar environment have specific adaptions to cope with the need for increased heat loss - in the case of elephants and rhinoceroses, these are large skin surface area, increasing the surface area to volume ratio, and a propensity to seek water to cool down in - direct heat conduction through water is much more efficient than through air. The other large african land mammal I can think of is the hippopotamus. No prizes for guessing how they keep cool. Note that the number of species of large african land mammals is small (I can think of 3 of this scale), whereas the number of species of small animals is massive.
Camels have a number of specific physiological adaptations that allow them to raise their body temperatures above that of other mammals, thus maintaining a higher rate of heat loss:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camel
Note that pretty much all of the other mammals living in deserts are very small and subterranean - e.g.hamsters.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Utter Testicles
Wow Wikipedia, that bastion of accurate and scientifically validated information.
Ever wondered another damn good reason things are small in the desert ? Very little food.
Large African land mammals:
Lion, Zebra, Rhino, African Buffalo, Wildebeest, Giraffe and a few more.
Re: Re: Utter Testicles
Actually, whether dinosaurs were cold or warm blooded isn't "settled science".
http://dinosaurs.about.com/od/dinosaurcontroversies/i/warmblooded.htm
The current prevailing thought is that they were actually warm blooded, but there's not enough data to know for sure.
Other animals
So horses changed size according to temperature so the theory goes. What about other animals? Any proof that they changed in size due to temperature changes?
Re: Other animals
The trouser snake is known to shrink when cold and grow in size when warm.
Re: Re: Other animals
but have you ever seen one in the wild?
Harumph, I say!
“Maybe that’s not all bad and if that’s the worst it gets, it will be fine. You can either adapt, or you go extinct, or you can move, and there’s not a lot of place to move anymore, so I think it’s a matter of adaptation and becoming smaller.”
As someone of Anglo-Viking ancestry, I find this racist and plan to kill the wanker via the Flying Eagle! Hand me the battle axe. Or chainsaw.
"bone-bothering boffins"
Love it! So much more expressive than palaeontologist!
I hate to go off on the compulsory tangent, but:
"...during the PETM, when concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and oceans caused temperatures to get hotter across the planet"
It's been documented numerous times (unwittingly by none other than Al Gore - he evidently either didn't look at the charts he displayed in his movie very closely or he assumed we were too stupid to notice) that the CO2 levels increased AFTER the temperature rose, not before. Saying over and over again that CO2 caused warming during this period doesn't make it so. The strategy, it seems, is to simply make the subliminal correlation enough times in casual conversation so that it becomes pseudo-intuitive ('everybody knows that!'). *** Note that I'm not saying that CO2 does not cause warming, only that the most often cited segment of the historical record doesn't support it. Using faulty data to support a position merely undermines that position.
you are thinking of interglacial cycles that have occurred in the past 10 million years. The PETM is an event that occurred 55 million years ago and there is good evidence that the CO2 rise happened before the warming
...not according to the available data. But you will continue to believe what you choose to believe.
Global warming COULD SHRINK THE HUMAN RACE
"Global warming COULD SHRINK THE HUMAN RACE"
I hop ethis doesnt also apply to my winkle.
I kind of like it the size it is already
Warm-blooded animals might need to "shrink" down in response to high global temperatures, but cold-blooded animals (reptiles...insects) would likely respond by getting larger, not smaller....
SHRINK WRAP
The HUMAN RACE - If Global Warming is Not REVERSED Soon - Will SHRINK from 7 Billion to about 144,000 - FIRST will be FAMINE Then when a Billion Refugees spread PESTILENCE and the Food Riots Start there will be Nuclear WAR and - for MOST of Humanity - DEATH. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse galloping towards us in Ten-Gallon Texan Cowboy Hats. http://www.theregister.co.uk/Design/graphics/icons/comment/pirate_32.png
Ever heard of the Masai?
Hmmm... I think this is more bunkum. The Masai live in a very warm climate and they are largely over 7 feet in height.
Re: Ever heard of the Masai?
Evolution is not *just* a product of temperature, but many things. The basic rule is that cold temp = low surface area : volume ratio. Think polar bears, whales etc. Penguins attain the same feat by behaviourl means (huddling) - the group has a small surface area compared to its volume. On the other hand we get things like meercats, hamsters, gerbils etc that are desert creatures which are tiny little things.
The large African animals referred to like elephants, hippos, lions etc don't live in the desert. They live on the plains where it is rather cooler. They also have various mechanisms that help them deal with the heat, which are either things that increase their surface area : volume ratio (huge ears for example) or are behavioural (like sitting in water, spraying themselves with water etc). The reason they are larger are the other benefits of size such as the ability to avoid predation (kinda hard to bring down a bull elephant with just your teeth).
The Masai still have a pretty high ratio due to them being very slim. Therefore their height alone is irrelevant for this purpose - it's their height *and* their build we need to consider.
Furthermore tallness granted them the ability to see danger from a greater distance. Therefore, the tall fat ppl and the short ppl didn’t get to pass on their genes. On the other hand the tall skinny folk were more active, having a higher surface area : volume ratio and could see things from afar much more easily being able to see over the grass.
If there weren't so much tall grass the Masai would be short, but there are other factors than just temp that affect the likelihood of being able to pass on your genes. Compare with the tiny ppl from SE Asia, esp the islands. There’s no real benefit to being tall if you live in the jungle - the trees will always be taller than you. Therefore heat becomes a larger factor and you get 'ickle ppl.
Re: Ever heard of the Masai?
I've spent a bit of time with the Maasai and the Datoga. The men are generally a little over 6' tall. They're certainly taller than average (particularly when compared with some of their neighbours), but I have no idea where you got the idea that they're all basketball giants. The main reason they are tall is that they have an unusually rich and high protein diet through childhood.
Proof
That all the UFO visitations are simply us visiting from the future. As we get smaller our brains and heads remain the same size and our skin will turn gray from less sunlight due to increased cloud cover. So if you see a small gray being with a large head - its just our future selves.
trying to be misleading?
Is the discussion on potential implications towards humans intended to be really misleading or is the author clueless?
Assuming that the science here is spot on (and new scientific understandings never occur with one study):
1. A significant evolutionary response is likely to take tens of thousands of years.
2. This response would require that we don't use air conditioning, we don't move, and technological change stop immediately in medicine, in areas that improve conditions for child development, and in reducing the cost of living generally. Historically low technological changes alone lead to the cost of living dropping by more than a factor of 7 in only a hundred years, let alone thousands.
Just nonsense
As anyone who has ever been to Dubai can attest. If it gets hot we just crank up the air conditioning. Normal evolutionary pressures do not work on humans. Fail.
"like the fact that we're running out of food"
Ooh, I dunno.
Maybe we could... grow some more?
Re: "like the fact that we're running out of food"
Requires:
water (lots)
energy (lots)
infrastructure (lots)
willingness and cooperation (lots)
money and technology (lots)
oil (lots and lots and lots)
USA is already eating the 3rd worlds food capacity (in terms of the above resources). If the 3rd world progresses to the same level as USA then as surely as rabbits on an island will run out of food at a given population size, then so will we.
However, we will run out of water first.
Re: "like the fact that we're running out of food"
We could plant some of these magic beans. Yours for only £500 each.
Short humans? I'm reminded of the Itorloo in Raymond Z. Gallun's Seeds of the Dusk
A wonderful discovery - this may be the negative feedback mechanism we are looking for: (1) Increase in CO2 leads to warming; (2) warming leads to shrinkage of organisms; (3) smaller organisms produce less CO2; (4) less CO2 leads to cooling - and so on.
Another Factor...
Large populations evolve more slowly than small ones. At 7 billion, the human population is incredibly large, probably larger than any mammal population in the past. So we're not evolving anywhere very fast at this point.
This could be changed either if the human population overall shrinks substantially, or if we stop traveling around the globe (which we've been doing, as far as evolution is concerned, for the past 30K+ years). Neither is very likely in the near term.
Heat makes animals shrink?
Really? Someone forgot to tell the Maasai about that....
No - I disagree
The oxygen levels were alot higher in prehistoric days (known fact) and it is this decline towards the levels we have now that was a factor in size reduction in animals. As also noted in insects.
Now we might have to get smaller to be able to sit on the next generation of public transport seating, which gets smaller and smaller each year that by 2025 I expect my kneecaps to be in my face.
Either way give me a Victorian ceiling hight over the claustrophbia inducing ceiling we have today
As long as it doesn't shrink my penis....
I am OK with it.
Than why are Samoan's so big?
If thats really the cause they Why are Samoan's so big? I would argue this is also the fact with Texans, and most of the southern US, but I think we have air conditioning and BBQ joints with seats that would fit a cow.
shinking humans
This is exactly the question I asked when I first read this story thanks for the answer.
I've done some research of my own.
I increased from 40cm to 193cm over about fifteen years and have been on an apparent plateau for the subsequent twenty five. Comparing this with the graph of average global temperature over the same period suggests no obvious correlation. Q.E.D.
let's get small, really small
Steve Martin, always ahead of his size, knew small was the answer in 1977...SNL, season 2 episode 14.
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