Polar Bears are Rewiring Their Own Genetics to Survive a Warming Climate (nbcnews.com)
- Reference: 0180384635
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/12/14/199215/polar-bears-are-rewiring-their-own-genetics-to-survive-a-warming-climate
- Source link: https://www.nbcnews.com/world/greenland/polar-bears-adapting-survive-warming-climate-rcna248805
But their research also suggests polar bears "are rapidly rewiring their own genetics in a bid to survive," [1]reports NBC News , in "the first documented case of rising temperatures driving genetic change in a mammal."
> "I believe our work really does offer a glimmer of hope — a window of opportunity for us to reduce our carbon emissions to slow down the rate of climate change and to give these bears more time to adapt to these stark changes in their habitats," [the lead author of the study told NBC News].
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> Building on earlier University of Washington research, [lead researcher] Godden's team analyzed blood samples from polar bears in northeastern and southeastern Greenland. In the slightly warmer south, they found that genes linked to heat stress, aging and metabolism behaved differently from those in northern bears. "Essentially this means that different groups of bears are having different sections of their DNA changed at different rates, and this activity seems linked to their specific environment and climate," Godden said in a university press release. She said this shows, for the first time, that a unique group of one species has been forced to "rewrite their own DNA," adding that this process can be considered "a desperate survival mechanism against melting sea ice...."
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> Researchers say warming ocean temperatures have reduced vital sea ice platforms that the bears use to hunt seals, leading to isolation and food scarcity. This led to genetic changes as the animals' digestive system adapts to a diet of plants and low fats in the absence of prey, Godden told NBC News.
[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/world/greenland/polar-bears-adapting-survive-warming-climate-rcna248805
Ship them to antarctica (Score:2)
and they can hunt penguins
Re: Ship them to antarctica (Score:2)
Bears and penguins hate each other. That is why they stay at opposite ends of the earth.
Claims not remotely supported (Score:3)
> Building on earlier University of Washington research, [lead researcher] Godden's team analyzed blood samples from polar bears in northeastern and southeastern Greenland. In the slightly warmer south, they found that genes linked to heat stress, aging and metabolism behaved differently from those in northern bears. "Essentially this means that different groups of bears are having different sections of their DNA changed at different rates, and this activity seems linked to their specific environment and climate," Godden said in a university press release. She said this shows, for the first time, that a unique group of one species has been forced to "rewrite their own DNA," adding that this process can be considered "a desperate survival mechanism against melting sea ice...."
Alarming that this is quote is allegedly from the person listed as the lead author on [1]the study [springer.com].
The study didn't perform any measurements that could establish a rate of change of DNA. It didn't even look at DNA or any heritable differences between the bears, it only looks at RNA expression of markers it said were correlated.
More specifically it only looked at RNA expression *in the blood* for *17 bears* and used the average temperature of the nearest town to the bear population. So temperature was just a proxy for population with lots of confounders. The study did nothing either to show that those were *advantageous* changes for bears in heat-stressed areas.
About the only actual take away from the study is "there were differences in blood transcriptomes of bears at different latitudes." Any further meaning is an unevidenced hypothetical.
Which could certainly be a starting point for further research. But that's about the extent of it.
[1] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s13100-025-00387-4
Sure, that SOUNDS impressive, but (Score:2)
At first glance being a polar bear geneticist appears glamorous... but then you learn they got constantly picked on in school, given wedgies and stuffed in polar bear lockers.
And don't get me started on how the girl polar bears are always laughing at those glasses-wearing geeky science types...
"Rewiring Their Own Genetics"? -- Nope! (Score:5, Insightful)
What is happening might be (and probably is) a natural process of evolution, but it is certainly NOT due to polar bears who are "rewiring their own genetics". The headline of this article and certain statements within the article are extreme examples of the anthropomorphication that occurs today in the popular media and in pieces written by people who don't understand that most things happen in the universe without any "wilful action" by anyone or anything. It's all just because of the Laws of Physics, as one of my physics profs used to grandly declare.
Re: "Rewiring Their Own Genetics"? -- Nope! (Score:1)
Polar bears are almost just white grizzlies, having differentiated fairly recently. So no big surprise that they can change back to a warm climate.
Re: (Score:1)
Yes, the article is poorly written. But it is not necessarily the case that it’s just “physics” in the sense you seem to imply. See Denis Noble’s talks [1]https://youtu.be/8OhMmjlYvxU?s... [youtu.be] [2]https://youtu.be/DT0TP_Ng4gA?s... [youtu.be] as examples. Is he right? Quite possibly not, but it isn’t beyond possibility that environmental stresses change what the DNA -> RNA -> protein expression process produces.
If warming causes Polar Bears to lose their white coats and look more like grizzly
[1] https://youtu.be/8OhMmjlYvxU?si=hIGjP26z0yLqa4Dy
[2] https://youtu.be/DT0TP_Ng4gA?si=3wGp_h5fl4WEYVga
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
It's incredibly frustrating to see mainstream media so consistently phrase evolutionary phenomena in ways that suggest that organisms somehow have conscious control of their genetics. At best, it is a simple misunderstanding, but my suspicion is that it is a longstanding, intentional effort to undermine natural selection and foundational principles of evolutionary biology. This is why, even after its widespread verification and acceptance by the scientific community, the general public still remains ignor