Meet future woman: shorter, plumper, more fertile

In addition, couldn't the later menopause be explained as a direct result of lower oocyte consumption? With 9 months of pregnancy, that's 8 or 9 fewer ovulation cycles, so wouldn't it makes sense for a woman with an extra child to have menopause a few months later? I'm no reproductive specialist here, but that seems like a reasonable assumption to me.

Add in the selection bias (women with later menopause are more likely to have an unexpected child at a late age), and this really could turn out to be an experiment with no notable findings.

req23• 17 years ago

Human women have around 400000 oocytes; their consumption is not a limiting factor.

toadstone• 17 years ago

do not want

jibiki• 17 years ago

I am blinded by your sparkling wit =/

icefox• 17 years ago

And that is perfectly fine because those who do want will reproduce more and soon your gene's will be gone.

randallsquared2• 17 years ago

Less well represented as a percentage doesn't mean those genes will die out.

tl• 17 years ago

"If these trends continue for 10 generations, Stearns calculates, the average woman in 2409 will be 2 centimetres shorter and 1 kilogram heavier than she is today. She will bear her first child about 5 months earlier and enter menopause 10 months later."

This is a non-story. The change they are predicting is unnoticeable 400 years out.

req23• 17 years ago

Please note that average height a mere hundred fifty years ago was a few centimetres shorter. The reversal of a trend (admittedly spurred by different causes) is notable. If you do wish to call a development a "non-story", please refute it with something more substantial than "the numbers don't look right to my programmer brain".

RK• 17 years ago

How about: the uncertainties in their extrapolation to 400 years beyond the present are probably greater than the changes they are predicting.

Meet future woman: shorter, plumper, more fertile

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