But, they’re still probably doomed
The Arctic Ocean current is at its warmest in the last 125,000 years, and temperatures continue to rise. Due to these warming temperatures more than two-thirds of polar bears are expected to be extinct by 2050 with total extinction predicted by the end of this century.
First, the majority of that time period was an ice age. Second, they have absolutely no direct measurement data from during previous Holocene warm periods to say this.
But in our new study my colleagues and I found that the changing climate was driving changes in the polar bear genome, potentially allowing them to more readily adapt to warmer habitats. Provided these polar bears can source enough food and breeding partners, this suggests they may potentially survive these new challenging climates.
We discovered a strong link between rising temperatures in south-east Greenland and changes in polar bear DNA. DNA is the instruction book inside every cell, guiding how an organism grows and develops. In processes called transcription and translation, DNA is copied to generate RNA (molecules that reflect gene activity) and can lead to the production of proteins, and copies of transposons (TEs), also known as “jumping genes”, which are mobile pieces of the genome that can move around and influence how other genes work. (big snip)
Over time the DNA sequence can slowly change and evolve, but environmental stress, such as warmer climate, can accelerate this process. (snip)
Our research found that some genes linked to heat-stress, ageing and metabolism are behaving differently in the south-east population of polar bears. This suggests they might be adjusting to their warmer conditions. Additionally, we found active jumping genes in parts of the genome that are involved in areas tied to fat processing – important when food is scarce. This could mean that polar bears in the south-east are slowly adapting to eating the rougher plant-based diets that can be found in the warmer regions. Northern populations of bears eat mainly fatty seals.
So, can we compare these minor changes from during the previous Holocene warm and cool periods over the last 8,000 years? Darwin and others noted that many animals and birds saw minor changes during different climate periods, like drought and wet. People living in cold regions adapt to that while ones in hotter areas adapt physically. That’s how life works.
But, but, but, polar bears are so cute and cuddly!
They’re also the only bears who see people as food.
Dana did you have a chance to look at a map of that airport road built for the “cultists” through the rainforest
Belem is a large b2 million metropolitan area. It is not a village in the rainforest. It is a major saltwater port. The new road first goes through about 3 miles of commercial and residential areas.
Then the economy devastation begin’ it enters a small city park 5.4 sq miles it goes for about 3 miles along the inside edge of the park. Killing trees ! Frightening birds!OMG!!! The horror!!!
Finally after 3? Miles it exits the park as it heads for center city
The alt route would have necessitated building the highway through old established commercial and residential buildings
Now knowing this, after you verified of course, do you think you were mis informed by what you read earlier ?
A.S.S.
The point is simple. The meeting could have been in other places. No need to do what they.
Not so simple to some people…
Thanks to God for giving polar bears transposons!! Discovered in maize in the 1940s by a female, Barbara McClintock (Nobel Prize 1983), these random “jumping genes” are a mechanism of evolution! https://laskerfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/mcclintock_young_300x343.jpg
How ironic that christians deny evolution, the process that God created to engineer the diversity on Earth! Beef, pork, wheat, rice, corn, soybeans all evolved to feed us!
Global warming is causing the redistribution of viruses, bacteria, plants and animals, including polar bears!! Sugar maples are packing up and hiking north! Populations in environmental isolation evolve differently from the same species but in a different environment.
The polar bear population of SE Greenland could develop a taste for human flesh rather than for the less available seals! The polar bear who eats kids on their way to school has a greater chance to mate and reproduce than one starving from the seal blubber shortage! Evolution!!
So, William admits that global warming MAY cause changes, but we’ll just adapt. True. Humans may be the most adaptable of species, along with bacteria and cockroaches! Given enough energy sources we can live from the Sahara to the Arctic Circle!!
The esteemed Mr Dowd wrote:
I have at some point, on this site if I remember correctly, suggested that President Trump’s trolling of the left that we should buy Greenland would make it a great place for illegal immigrant detention centers and federal prisons. You escape, and you freeze.
But now Mr Dowd has come up with an equally elegant solution: you escape, you get et by a polar bear.
The Klingon prison camp at the dilithium mines of Rura Panthe had only one punishment for prisoners who didn’t follow the rules: exile to the surface. On the surface, nothing can survive for long before freezing to death. There are apparently no polar bears on Rura Penthe.
I suppose at some point the polar bears will change their fur to brown and move south. There are a lot of seals in San Francisco bay. If they just move down into Grizzly territory they can have all the salmon they can scarf.