As Europe recovers from an unprecedented heat wave that shattered temperature records and melted roads, it’s becoming clear that it isn’t just people who suffer from the effects of climate change—it’s nonhuman animals too. A study published yesterday (August 8) in PNAS, for instance, finds that the heat is aging some lizards prematurely. Researchers noted that lizards that bear live young are giving birth to offspring with shortened telomeres, the strings of DNA that cap chromosomes to protect them from wear and tear. The team suggests that because this gradual degradation of telomeres can be passed across generations, the damage may be difficult to reverse.
“Once you are in this circle of events, it’s quite complicated to come back,” study coauthor Andréaz Dupoué, a biologist at IFREMER, an oceanographic institute in France, tells The Washington Post. “It can become a vicious circle,” which the researchers call an “aging loop.”
The ...
