"Why Sex With Creatures from the Future Is a Bad Idea"

On the other hand, "time-traveling brine shrimp" would be a great name for a rock band!


ménage à trawler

When time travel finally becomes possible, we might want to think twice about getting it on. According to a new study on tiny shrimp (Artemia franciscana), sex with partners from a different time could kill you.
Researchers at the Center for Functional and Evolutionary Ecology (CEFE) in Montpellier, France, collected preserved brine shrimp eggs from various generations, and then reanimated them with water. Nicolas Rode and colleagues mated pairs of brine shrimp that had been reanimated from eggs preserved since 1985, 1996 and 2007, a period representing roughly 160 generations. They found that females that mated with males from the past or future died off sooner than those that mated with their own generation. The longer the time-shift, the earlier they died: The 22-year time difference shortened female lifetimes by 12 percent; the effect was 3 percent for the 11-year time-shift.

This research was done in France? If they want to experiment with sex, how about "dinner and a movie"?

...females that mated with males from the past or future died off sooner than those that mated with their own generation.

Sounds like the punchline to an old joke. Zebadiah was 96 and about to marry a 16 year old girl. "Aren't you worried about that kind of exertion might bring about death?" asked his friends.

"Nah," said Zebadiah. "If she dies, she dies."

H/T Memeorandum