Scientists Warn 'Testicle Mutations' Could Lead To Men's Extinction

Well, this isn’t the best news to start your day with – reading that the guys downstairs might eventually give out!

But, thankfully, it’s not exactly our testicles that will quit anytime soon.

Somewhere far down the line after we’re all long gone, researchers suggest that future generations could face 'testicle mutations' that might stop Y chromosomes from functioning properly.

Scientists believe men may have an expiration date Getty stock

As you probably know, our biological sex is defined by our chromosomes.

People born male typically have one X and one Y chromosome, while those born female have two X chromosomes.

Recent studies are hinting that the Y chromosome is shrinking, which could eventually lead to some big changes.

Maybe Beyoncé was onto something when she dropped “Run the World (Girls)” back in 2011!

Professor Jennifer Graves from Australian National University has proposed a theory that men might disappear from Earth in about five million years – maybe even from the universe if her predictions hold true.

Graves bases this gloomy outlook on how quickly genes are disappearing from the Y chromosome over time.

Fellas' days may be numbered Getty Stock Image

If Graves’ prediction isn’t unnerving enough, genetics expert Professor Brian Sykes warned us back in 2003 with his book, Adam’s Curse: A Future Without Men.

Sykes believed that men’s extinction could arrive in a much shorter timeframe – suggesting we could disappear in only about 100,000 years.

However, not all scientists agree that men’s days are numbered.

Jennifer Hughes, among others, disputes these claims and questions the methods that Graves and Sykes used to reach their conclusions.

Working with a team at the Whitehead Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Hughes explained how their research in 2005 compared the human Y chromosome to that of chimpanzees, which split off from our evolutionary path roughly six million years ago.

Hell yeah boys, we might just exist in six million years then... or at least our descendants will! Getty stock

Hughes’ team has now expanded this study to include rhesus monkeys, whose lineage diverged from ours about 25 million years ago.

"The Y is not going anywhere and gene loss has probably come to a halt," Hughes shared in an interview with BBC News.

"We can't rule out the possibility it could happen another time, but the genes which are left on the Y are here to stay."

"They apparently serve some critical function which we don't know much about yet, but the genes are being preserved pretty well by natural selection."

Based on these studies, Hughes believes the decline of the Y chromosome has been minimal, noting that it hasn’t lost any genes in the past six million years and has only dropped one gene in the last 25 million years.

So, what do you think? Are we here to stay, gentlemen?