I
picked the environmental stress of heat because it is so often talked about,
not so much with humans, but the earth itself. Heat negatively effects human homeostasis
by Hyperthermia, which is an overheating of the body that eventually causes the
deterioration of all internal organs, if it remains untreated. Heat can also
cause cramps, heat stroke, and heat exhaustion. Heat from the sun specifically
can also cause certain forms of skin cancer as well as sun burn.
One
example of short-term adaption to this specific stress would be sweating, which
cools down the body somewhat, when it becomes too hot.
An
example of a facultative adaption is the reddening of the skin when exposed to
heat for a long period of time. The reddening of the skin is all the blood coming
to the surface to help cool the person’s internal organs.
An
example of Developmental adaption in humans is the limb length, the height of
the person, and their weight. People adapted to a hot climate are usually tall
and lanky, with long limps to help disperse heat from their bodies.
Two
examples of cultural adaption to heat are diet and clothing style. Humans
generally choose to indulge in colder foods such as ice cream and popsicles
around this time of year. Most humans also began wearing shorter and thinner
clothing to help with their body’s cooling process.
The
benefits of studying human variation across environmental clines from this
perspective is learning how things happen to our bodies and why. We also learn
just how much our environment affects us and how we have evolved and adapted to
it through natural selection. Information from these explorations is helpful to
us in an educational way as well as a way to better survive. Examples of how
this information helps us is knowing how to protect yourself in certain
climates such as extremely hot or extremely cold.
I
would use race to understand this adaption because people in hotter
environments are normally have a very dark or black skin color, because it
better helps defend against the damage the sun can cause as well as helping
cool the person down. I believe that this variation helps explain why depending
on our different environments, why we are different colors and that inside we
are all the same. This study offers undeniable proof that just because we have
different skin colors and such does not mean we are too different to be equal.
Hey Zoey! I also chose heat as my environmental stress. I liked how for your facultative trait you put how the blood comes to the surface to help the internal organs. Very interesting fact. I also liked your cultural adaptations I used clothing style as well but I liked how you put in the part about the Popsicles! Very true fact about summers in california. Good last sentence about how just because we are different it doesn't mean we can't be equal. Great last post!
ReplyDeleteGood description of the possible dangers of heat stress, but don't forget that it can lead to death. That completes the story of this particular stress.
ReplyDeleteGood choice of short term adaptation, but how does sweating cool the body? An explanation of the process would have been helpful.
Remember that an adaptation helps the body deal with a stress in some way, correct? So how does red skin help deal with heat stress? Is red skin the adaption or just a symptom of the actual adaptation, vasodilation, which draws blood (and heat) to the surface of the skin where the heat can dissipate?
Good explanation of your developmental adaptation. Can you identify the rules that help to explain how body shape encourages heat dispersion (or retention in cold weather)? Check the supplementary information in the assignment folder for this information.
The clothing adaptations make sense to me, but in all honesty, ice cream doesn't. :-) Yes, it is cold but it also is full of fat and sugar, which can actually add body fat. According to Bergmann and Allen's rules, this shouldn't make sense. I think we just like to eat ice cream!
I agree that information like this can benefit us personally, but can we think beyond that to consider how this information can benefit humanity more broadly in a productive, applied way? Can we use this information to design tools and clothing and housing that better dissipate heat? Can it be applied to the medical field to develop technology and therapies?
In your final section, you are still just using the environmental approach to explain skin color. You aren't basing the explanation on race, just kind of layering race over top of it.
To answer this question, you have to figure out first what "race" actually is. Race is a social construct, a human-generated system of organizing and classifying people into artificial groups based only upon external phenotypic expressions. Unlike the environment, race has no causal relationship with human variation. It does not cause our adaptations, it only groups them. Without that causal relationship, race has no explanatory power. It can't explain why we vary, as the adaptive approach can. You cannot use race to understand why humans vary. Only the adaptive approach can do that.
I think a lot of people chose heat, I think it is easier to find information on heat. I did one on solar radiation. Anyway good job. I enjoyed all the information about heat adaption. I had no idea that the length of our limbs had anything to do with heat adaption so that was very interesting to learn. Great job very informative.
ReplyDeleteHi Zoe
ReplyDeleteI really liked you post. I did not know that people who live in hotter climates adapted by being tall and lanky. The same goes for the blood and how it comes to the surface to help internal organs. Is that adaption mostly common in light skinned people or does everyone have that adaption?
Great post again!