Animal Planet just said human males will be extinct in 125,000 years.

[Fridays Child]

But can the world can hold out that long? :P

Actually, it was pretty interesting. The topic was the whiptail lizard, which is unisexual and only female. It was noted that the human male's Y chromosome used to be a fully functioning X it has but has shrunk over the millenia, from 1,500 genes to 78. It's supposededly shrinking, still, and will, eventually disappear, alogether. At that point men will be extinct!

No link but the show was Most Extreme Animals, or something like that.

[Ignacio Upton]

1. WTF?

Put me on the endangered species list...NOW!

[Botany]

2. ah .... no

not unless people learn to reproduce asexually.

Remember just because it was on the Teee Veee don't make it true.

[RaleighNCDUer]

3. Don't see it happening.

With very few exceptions, humans are not reptiles.

[Orrex]

4. If true, then no way am I going to work tomorrow

How can I be expected to waste what little time I have left?

[havocmom]

5. But, who will open the jars?

:shrug:

[Fridays Child]

7. I'm giving you exactly 125,000 years to come up with a solution.

;)

[Tesha]

13. With a pair of "Strap Wrenches", anyone can open the jars.

The other useful trick is to bang the jar, lid first,
onto the countertop. It will usually then open easily.

Tesha

[Jamastiene]

18. Also, tapping the top with the handle of a butterknife

all the way around once really works wonders. I think it breaks the seal or something to that affect. Either suggestion you offered would also suffice in most cases.

[Jamastiene]

20. If you want men to survive, shouldn't that be

124,999 years, so they'll have time to administer the antedote? :P

[tularetom]

6. Maybe I'll get some respect around here

now that I'm endangered.

[brothers in science]

8. human males will be extinct in 125,000 years...

...theory of evolution is now theory of devolution?

[Fridays Child]

9. How is it devolution?

[crikkett]

14. it's obviously the perspective of the man who wrote that

:)

[unpossibles]

17. are we not men?

we are DEVO!

[Jamastiene]

19. Ahem, and how exactly does this translate into devolution.

Or are you saying that losing that tail and becoming a Y chromosome was devolution? I'm confused by your question.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

10. They're talking about parthenogenesis, eh?

I believe in mammals there's a molecular biological hurdle to parthenogensis that's not present in reptiles, where parthenogenesis is only a point mutation away.

"Most Extreme Animals" is a pretty silly show.

[Fridays Child]

11. Oh, great. Go ahead and burst my bubble.

x( :P

[BadgerKid]

12. "mammalian DNA imprinting problem"

Interesting.

This article goes into some of the biological background:

http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:Ct7N0KUZpwYJ:atlasgeneticsoncology.org/Deep/GenomImprintID20032.html+mammalian+DNA+imprinting+problem&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=18

[Orrex]

21. I thought that was the study of the origin of ancient Greek buildings

Learn somethin' new every day.

[Odin2005]

15. It's a load of crap pop "science"

The show is right about the evolution of the Y Chromosome, but when the chromosome disappers what happens is that the SRY gene, the one that triggers the dvelopment of male features (mammalian embryos are female by defalt) jumps to another chromosome, begining the cycle again.

[MadBiologist]

16. Asexuality is not going to happen

This is only of current rates continue. Sexual reproduction will remain in some form because it is NOT evolutionarily advantageous to use asexual reproduction. The number of genes may shrink, but the functions they serve will probably be taken over elsewhere in the genome, and we may move to a haplo-diploid model.

Assuming of course that the Y chromosome shrinks down to nothing usable, which I dont think it will.