Episode
Hotter Days, Fewer Boys? How Climate Change Is Quietly Reshaping Birth
- Podcast
- Paul Talks Science
- Published
- Mar 2, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 1517
- Processing state
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Summary
In this episode of Paul Talks Science , Paul sits down with Dr. Jasmin Abdel Ghany to unpack groundbreaking new research showing that rising temperatures don’t just affect the planet — they affect who we are . A major study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reveals that exposure to heat during pregnancy is linked to shifts in the sex ratio at birth. By analysing more than five million births across 33 Sub-Saharan African countries and India, the team finds that temperatures above about 20 °C are consistently associated with fewer male births — but for strikingly different reasons in each region. In Sub-Saharan Africa, heat early in pregnancy may increase prenatal loss among male fetuses. In India, heat later in pregnancy appears to influence access to or use of sex-selective abortion, temporarily narrowing long-standing gender imbalances. Listeners and viewers will discover how climate stress can shape human reproduction biologically and behaviourally, and why these hidden effects matter for population health and gender balance as the world warms.