William Atkins
Sunday, 25 October 2009 20:44
Science -
Biology
Page 1 of 2
U.S. researchers have concluded that women of northern European descent are getting shorter in height and heavier in weight from past generations to future generations.
According to the October 22, 2009 ScienceNOW Daily News (Science Magazine) article “
We're Still Evolving--And We May Be Shrinking,” a study headed by U.S. evolutionary biologist
Stephen Sterns, from Yale University, studied a group of women from Framingham, Massachusetts.
The study concluded that these women are
“… evolving at the same rate as the average animal and plant, and will become shorter and heavier over successive generations.”
The research team used data from the
Framingham Heart Study, which uses about 5,000 residents, both male and female, from Framingham, Massachusetts.
The Framingham study has been conducted since 1948, so has seen data collected from over three generations of families.
The researchers took into account such factors as smoking and education in order to eliminate extraneous factors within the women.
Thus, they found that over ten generations in the future these characteristics of women will increase/decrease by a certain percentage.
Page two lists the three conclusions of the Sterns-led study.
