Here\u2019s what you\u2019ll learn when you read this story:<\/p>\n
A microbiologist named Jo\u00e3o Pedro de Magalh\u00e3es proposed the idea that the reign of dinosaurs forced mammals to speed up their reproductive cycle, eliminating key longevity genes.<\/p>\n
de Magalh\u00e3es posits that in order to survive amidst dinosaurs, mammals may have actively evolved away from long life, something he calls the \u201clongevity bottleneck hypothesis.\u201d<\/p>\n
He claims that even though mammals (such as humans) can have relatively long lifespans, we still operate under dinosaur-era restraints.<\/p>\n
Mammals may struggle to attain long life thanks to dinosaurs. According to University of Birmingham microbiologist Jo\u00e3o Pedro de Magalh\u00e3es, the age of dinosaur dominance completely shifted the evolutionary track of virtually every mammal on Earth, refocusing evolutionary efforts on rapid reproduction instead of long life.<\/p>\n
There was no point in trying to live for a long time when a dinosaur would just eat you anyway. To keep a species<\/a> alive, rapid reproduction proved way more useful.<\/p>\n \u201cMy hypothesis is that such a long evolutionary<\/a> pressure on early mammals for rapid reproduction led to the loss or inactivation of genes and pathways associated with long life,\u201d de Magalh\u00e3es wrote in a paper published<\/a> in 2023 in BioEssays. \u201cI call this the \u2018longevity bottleneck hypothesis,\u2019 which is further supported by the absence in mammals of regenerative traits.\u201d<\/p>\n While noting that humans (along with elephants and whales) theoretically have the potential to live longer than most other mammals, de Magalh\u00e3es said that every mammal is still living under genetic constraints dating back to the era of the dinosaurs<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cEvolving during the rule of the dinosaurs left a lasting legacy in mammals,\u201d de Magalh\u00e3es wrote. \u201cFor over 100 million years when dinosaurs were the dominant predators<\/a>, mammals were generally small, nocturnal, and short-lived.\u201d<\/p>\n The pressure to stay alive eliminated the genes<\/a> needed for long life. Citing reptiles and other animals with a much slower biological aging process than mammals, de Magalh\u00e3es hypothesizes that during the Mesozoic Era, mammals either lost or deactivated genes associated with long life.<\/p>\n \u201cSome of the earliest mammals were forced to live toward the bottom of the food chain and have likely spent 100 million years during the age of the dinosaurs evolving to survive through rapid reproduction,\u201d de Magalh\u00e3es wrote in a statement<\/a>. \u201cThat long period of evolutionary pressure has, I propose, an impact on the way that we humans<\/a> age.\u201d<\/p>\n Digging deeper into the research, de Magalh\u00e3es came to believe that the loss of enzymes tied to the Mesozoic Era limits many mammals\u2019 ability to repair damage. Examples include the loss of enzymes that restores skin singed by ultraviolet light and the fact that mammal teeth<\/a> don\u2019t continue growing throughout their lifetime like reptiles.<\/p>\n He says that the animal world offers remarkable repair and regeneration examples, but that some of that genetic information would have been \u201cunnecessary for early mammals that were lucky to not end up as T. Rex<\/a> food.\u201d<\/p>\n Of course, de Magalh\u00e3es knows this is all just a hypothesis, but it\u2019s one he thinks could have some substantial explanatory power. \u201cThere are lots of intriguing angles to take this,\u201d he said, \u201cincluding the prospect that cancer<\/a> is more frequent in mammals than other species due to the rapid aging process.\u201d<\/p>\n If we really do have the dinosaurs to blame for our rapid aging, at least we got the last laugh.<\/p>\n You Might Also Like<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Here\u2019s what you\u2019ll learn when you read this story: A microbiologist named Jo\u00e3o Pedro de Magalh\u00e3es proposed the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":638929,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[49,48,238567,238569,27672,238568,66],"class_list":["post-638928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-joao-pedro-de-magalhaes","tag-magalhaes","tag-mammals","tag-rapid-reproduction","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=638928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638928\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/638929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=638928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=638928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=638928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}