November 22nd, 2004, 9:34 am

Ah! Male Fish turning into Women!

Male fish are turning into female fish due to estrogen polluting the waterways! Reports MSNBC.com:

“I’ve done a lot of studies throughout my career which extends back to 1973,” says research associate John Woodling. “This is the very first time that what I’ve found scared me.” “This fish has characteristics of both male and female,” says Dr. David O. Norris of the University of Colorado, Boulder. And scientists have found lots of them in three Colorado rivers, all of them downstream from sewage treatment plants. In the Boulder Creek, female white suckers outnumbered males five to one and 50 percent of the males also had female sex tissue. Researchers say the cause is too much estrogen in the water, a natural female hormone that is found in every sewer system. But also, they say, certain chemical compounds in detergents and soaps can mimic estrogen. [...] “But since finding evidence that estrogen may be turning male fish into female fish, scientists are now looking at what it means for the nation’s drinking water.”