Gay lions and cheating chimps — what animals tell us about sexuality
Clarity comes, as so often, from one's testicles. Amid all the confusions surrounding modern sexuality — the gender fluidity, sexual fluidity, polyamory and poly-all-sorts-of-things — a truth, of sorts, can be found in gonads. Because dangling within, Nathan Lents explains in The Sexual Evolution, lies an entire evolutionary history of sexual politics.
Consider a chimpanzee's balls, if you must. Chimpanzees have massive balls. Balls an Italian mafioso would boast about. The reason is simple, and something an Italian mafioso would be less proud of. When chimpanzees have sex the males can never be sure how many other males have recently had sex with the same female. This is a species that is, shall we say, sex-positive. So how do they ensure their own genes
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ChatGPT bosses fear its AI will be used to create devastating new ‘bioweapons' and warns app will ‘hit that level' soon
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But computer models testing this theory have before now failed to recreate the actual, observed cooling – as these experts have done with the now-proven AMOC theory. The team say the study strengthens future climate forecasts, especially those concerning Europe, where the influence of the AMOC is most pronounced. While previous studies have offered evidence that the AMOC is weakening, this anomalous blob in the Atlantic offers physical, tangible evidence. Professor Liu emphasized the complexity of the AMOC's role in the global climate, but warned what a total collapse of the system could mean. 'The overall impact on ecosystems and weather patterns, both in the Arctic and globally, could still be severe,' he said. Professor David Thornalley, a climate scientist at University College London who was not involved with the study, said temperatures would plummet if the AMOC collapsed. 'An AMOC collapse could cause more weather extremes, so as well as overall colder-than-average conditions, we also expect that there would be more winter storms caused by stronger westerly winds,' he previously told MailOnline. Why could the AMOC collapse? Scientists think melting glaciers could cause the collapse of the AMOC, the system of ocean currents. Described as 'the conveyor belt of the ocean', the AMOC transports warm water near the ocean's surface northwards – from the tropics up to the northern hemisphere. Prior studies have already shown that due to climate change, the AMOC is slowing down. The engine of this conveyor belt is off the coast of Greenland, where, as more ice melts from climate change , more freshwater flows into the North Atlantic and slows everything down. 'Unfortunately people would die due to stronger winter storms and flooding, and many old and young would be vulnerable to the very cold winter temperatures.' In the UK, the effects could be 'minor' compared with elsewhere around the world, Professor Thornalley added. 'A collapse in AMOC would cause a shift in the tropical rainfall belt which would massively disrupt agriculture and water supplies across huge swathes of the globe,' he said. 'Many millions would be affected and suffer from drought, famine and flooding, in countries that are already struggling to deal with these issues. There would be huge numbers of climate refugees, geopolitical tensions would rise.' Jonathan Bamber, a professor of Earth observation at the University of Bristol, agreed that if the AMOC were to collapse, the climate of northwest Europe would be 'unrecognisable compared to what it is today'. 'It would be several degrees cooler so that winters would be more typical of Arctic Canada and precipitation would decrease also,' he told MailOnline. 'Very harsh, cold winters would certainly be a threat to life.' In 'The Day After Tomorrow', a collapse of the AMOC takes place over a matter of days and the fictional weather immediately switches to extreme cold. Thankfully, such a rapid transition will not happen in real life, said Penny Holliday, head of marine physics and ocean circulation at the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton. 'If the AMOC does reach a tipping point it will happen over several decades at least,' she told MailOnline. 'However a slowdown of the AMOC, whether it is fast-acting or takes place over many decades, will lead to the generation of more extreme and violent weather systems that have the potential to cause deaths and major damage.' Last week, another team of scientists reported temperatures could plunge to -30°C in Scotland if the AMOC collapsed, with Edinburgh spending nearly half of the year with a minimum temperature of below 0°C. London, meanwhile, would experience cold extremes of -19°C and record over two months' worth of additional days with sub-zero temperatures compared to the late 19th century. Is 'The Day After Tomorrow' an accurate portrayal of the future? Paleoclimate records constructed from Greenland ice cores have revealed that AMOC circulation has, indeed, shut down in the past and caused regional climate change, according to the University of Illinois. It caused the area around Greenland to cool by 44 degrees Fahrenheit. In the 2004 film 'The Day After Tomorrow,' New York City's temperature dramatically dropped to a point that a deep freeze appeared within a day. Even a second outside and the movie's characters would freeze to death. Scientists say the film plays up the shift, which would take decades to see, but note temperatures would dramatically decrease along the eastern US coast. Winters would become colder and storms more frequent that would linger longer throughout the year if the AMOC would come to a halt today. However, scientist say it isn't the cold temperatures that we should prepare for, it will be the rise in sea levels that will have the largest impact. The increase would be caused by water piling up along the east coast that would have been pushed away by the northward surface flow. But with AMOC weakened, or at a stop, experts say sea levels around the North Atlantic Basin could experience a rise up to nearly 20 inches. This would eventually push people living along the coast from their homes and further inland to escape flooding. A weakened AMOC would also decrease the amount of rainfalls in the North Atlantic that would cause intense droughts in areas that rarely experience such events.
