Human Variation & Race

1) The environmental stress I have chosen is heat. Humans ability to maintain homeostasis relative to environmental heat is a rather difficult task. Heat at temperatures too high affect us in that it not only damages our skin, it also causes internal damage as well. As a natural reaction to heat, we sweat. However, if the weather is hot and dry then humidity will be low, causing sweat to readily evaporate. What it does externally is burn our skin.This mostly affects people with paler skin complexions and less melanin prepared to protect the skin. The burning will cause redness of the affected area, peeling of the skin that has been burned, and pain when the area is touched. 

2) Human have adapted heat stress is sweating, which is a short-term adaptation. Sweating is the release of a salty liquid from the body’s sweat glands and it helps keep their body cool. This process is also called perspiration. Sweating is an essential function that helps your body stay cool. Sweat is commonly found under the arms, on the feet, and on the palms of the hands. The slightest breeze of wind, will cool our skin when it meets our sweat. Also, it soaks into our clothing, giving us and even further amount of cooling.



The second way humans have adapted to heat is air conditioning. As far as behavioral adaptations

go, humans are smart enough to invent creative means of avoiding the heat. We seek out shade and cooler environments such as caves, tree cover, water, etc. When we feel ourselves becoming too hot. We drink more water. We limit our physical exertion to reduce water loss. You could even call air conditioning a highly advanced behavioral adaptation for avoiding the heat. Human beings are able to live in more varied climates and environments than any other animal because of our ingenuity and behavioral adaptations.

Darker skin and bipedalism are the two greatest developmental adaptations to heat which is development adaption. The darker skin complexions can withstand the heat more efficiently than people with pale skin. They can stand the heat longer and naturally it doesn't cause much or any harm to them. Bipedalism is everyone's adaptation to heat in that it brings us up from the ground where heat is immediately being extracted from and it allows us to expose a tremendously lower amount of our body to the sun. 

The fourth way humans have adapted to heat is by using swimming 

pool or oceans. As for cultural adaptations, we have incorporated large bodies of water to get into like pools or oceans. We now even have swamp coolers that can do the job for us if we live in a modern, enclosed house.

3) The benefits of studying human variation we learn how to cope with heat, how to avoid being damaged by it or possibly killed by it. Explorations like this are helpful in many ways. Any other hot place on our planet, it give us the power to keep our race (human) alive when under these conditions.

One example of how this information can be used in a productive way is to explain race in a environmental adaption. We have to accept that human adapted environment differently then the animals and we can cope with different environments in different ways. 

4) To help someone understand the variations of adaptations to heat based on race I would explain how black people have darkness in their skin that helps then withstand the heat and white people didn't develop the same way. However, they do tan during the summer time when it is most hot out in order to avoid damage by the sun (no offense to anyone). Well, when you use race to explain adaptation variations you separate people the single "human race" that we are and put them into sub-categories, as if to be totally different species. To clarify and explain that the only reason we have different phenotypic adaptations is that every environment is different brings us back to unity. When it's explained this way, it makes the listener understand the relation we have to our environment and that its the stresses we undergo over long periods of time that shape our adaptations, not the race that we are born into.

 

Language post

Part 1: 

In the experiment of limited communication, I found it to be quite difficult to express my thoughts fully. Initially, I thought that since I know how to communicate, as I do it everyday, this would be easy. When I tried to express myself through gestures, I began to realize that I'd have to emit a lot more effort than with speaking along. I also realized that in order for the group I was communicating with to understand what I was trying to tell them, they'd need some sort of background of my form of communication; which they didn't have.

The impressions that they had left me with were of confusion. They had only a slight idea of what I was trying to tell them, and even then they still had parts of information incorrect. They way they spoke to me at first was how they'd normally speak. After many failed efforts of being able to comprehend what I was communicating back to them, they began to speak at a more remedial level, hoping that my response would be more easily understandable.

If we were two different cultures meeting for the first time, the culture with the ability to speak and identify objects by a commonly used name, and incorporate body language into their communication would be able to communicate complex ideas. The first set of individuals that have a difficulty communicating spoken language in our own culture, are babies. When they communicate with adults, they use mostly body language; they point, grab our hands and pull us to their desires, they tap our legs and look into the direction they want us to go. However, when we speak to them, we don't use fully complex and incomprehensible terminology; we speak at a very basic and understandable level. We point to objects and address them by using "one word" phrases, we will often repeat the word to the child and press their hand against the object so that they can identify it in the future. 

Part 2:

When I started to speak with no tone emphasis and no other form of expression, it seemed possible. After a few minutes of speaking that way I wasn't able to continue; I started to slightly use some intonation. Being that I am very expressive when I speak, it came naturally when I started to speak normally. What made this the most difficult for me was, forcing myself out of my comfort zone. Sitting very still, not nodding my head to suit the expression of my words, holding my facial muscles still when they're naturally programmed to curve over my words and to keep my hands on my lap without implying seriousness or firmness of my points almost made me feel alien to my own body.

This experiment has shown me that in order to communicate an idea effectively, the possession of the ability to speak well and  the use of bodily gestures as emphasis for your words is required. We are beings who express ideas to one another because of the passion we have for them. Without the body gestures, our passion begins to wither. Words can only carry our message so far, it's the difference in tone and pitch, the movement of limbs and facial muscles that our corespondent's attention thrives off of.

Yes, some people do have difficulty reading body language. Though I believe it is rare, it's still possible. Being able to read body language also gives you the ability to comprehend invasive ideas. So being able to read body language really is a sign of being intelligent. If environmental conditions (for whatever reason) prohibited people from speaking face to face and we were only allowed to speak via telephone or email, then we'd have no benefit for being able to read body language. Body language is only effective to the interpreter when he/she is within visibility of the communicator.

Piltdown Hoax Essay

       The Piltdown ‘human’ was found in South East England in the early 1900’s. This piece of fossil was found by a worker who then gave it to Charles Dawson, an archaeologist. This fossil was very important for Dawson theory. Dawson then met a geologist, Sir Arthur Woodward and  an anatomist, Arthur Keith and Telihard.  In February 1912, Dawson published his discoveries and his thought about how it have the evidence of an ape-like jawbone and human-like teeth. This cause the scientific community in uproar. For England this was a great new, for they finally can have a proof that they also have old human-ape-like fossils found in their land. However, in 1949 they tested the fluorine content of the fossil and found out that the age of the fossil is less than 100 years old. They also found an artificial stain and the teeth had been filled on the fossil and in the end they found out that the fossil belonged to a female orangutan whose teeth had been filled so it will look like a human-like teeth. Big suspicion was given to Charles Dawson who was thought wanted to make it to the high class of scientific society. Dawson also found many other fossils with the same artificial stain found in the Piltdown’s fossil. In the end, the discovery was just a Hoax. It doesn’t have a any connection between human and ape at all.

       Being humans we all have faults which cause all of us to make mistakes whether they are intensional or not.  In this scenario, pride, and lack to details are some of the faults that were present. Lack of details occurred when they uncovered new early human fossils from different parts of the world they should have compared them to the piltdown discovery to see if there were any underlining similarities between the fossils which should have been present. Same basic jaw structure, teeth, and format of the skull would have been some basic things to look for when comparing the piltdown man and other early human fossils finding from different parts of the world. Pride was by far the biggest fault involved with this scenario, pride for his country and wanting to be recognized by the scientific community is what most say is the major motivation they say that Charles Dawson had to making the forgeries. He wanted to be accepted by the scientific community for his findings and also wanted England to have one of the earliest human fossils to ever be found he felt such discoveries would be England on top of the scientific community at the time. 

       About 10 years later, in the 1920’s scientist were digging up remains in Asia and Africa that were less human, not more human, yet were relatively younger than the Piltdown man remains found in England. While these remains lead to questions of the Piltdown mans authenticity or evolution path, the technology was not available during the time to fully study the bones. After WWII a new technology was created that allowed scientist to measure the fluorine content in fossils allowing them to give the fossils a date.  The test is called a fluorine analysis and was conducted on the Piltdown fossils in 1949. The fluorine analysis showed that the remains were only around 100 years old, rather than the previous claim that they were 1 million years old.  In 1953 scientist conducted an even more thorough exam of the fossils with better dating methods. The exam revealed that the staining on the bones was superficial, materials were cut with a steel knife after being fossilized and the teeth in the jaw showed groove lines providing evidence that the teeth were filed down to make them look more human. Belonging to a female orangutan, the jaw bone was modified to make it look less ape-like in shape and the canines were filed down to make them look more human. After the extensive examination, scientist concluded that the Piltdown fossils were not real.

      I wouldn't say remove human factors but remove desperation and self-pride as initial motives for finding the next great discovery. Emotions alone can cause conflicts in science creating bias theories which are not feasible for proper research. The personal human factors can cause damage to the continuity of studies, generations could be mislead like this situation with the Piltdown Man, everything demands the fundamentals of scientific research. Frauds like Charles Dawson, could have motives that was so eager to be noticed for finding a simple ape jaw he wanted the world to think he found something pertaining to man. As disgusting as it sounds his motive to present a lie is not honored, but the positive thing is that it make the scientist more aware of these types of frauds, should have been soon than later.

      I believe that there are several life lessons that can be learned from this historical event, the most important one is that if you start something new, you should finish it no matter what. Also, if you want to prove something, back it up with your own facts, provide evidence of your work, so that others can believe you and listen to you. 

Dentition Patterns

Lemurs

Lemurs eating habits consists with foods like leaves, flowers, buds, bark, fruits. Lemurs have a very nutrition diet, 

but occasionally they eat insects and small animals such as mice. Lemurs’ dentition is heterodont, they have many 

teeth with morphologies, the dentition pattern is 2. 1. 3. 3. 2 incisors 1 canine, 3 premolars, 3 molars. Their teeth are 

mostly used for grooming and feeding. Lemurs are naturally found on the Comoro Islands and Madagascar islands, 

an island located about 250 miles off the coast of southern Africa in the Indian Ocean. Lemurs live in trees which is 

why they called arboreal. They are also highly adaptable to what the area have to offer them. Some live in the rain 

forests, while others live in very hot and dry areas. Lemurs have been in existence for more than 50 million years. 

They have adapted from solitary animals to live in groups of more than 30.  

                                                    

                           

Spider Monkeys    

Spider Monkey inhabit Central America, South America, and Mexico. All three regions have 
tropical environments. Spider monkeys differ from Prosimians, in regard to their jaw and teeth. They have two 
incisors, 1 canine, 3 premolars and 3 molars. They have no hypoconulids on the first 2 lower molars. A dental 
formula is used to describe the number of each type of tooth that specifies a certain species. The dental formula for a 
spider monkey is 2. 1. 3. 3. Spider monkeys stay near the tops of canopy trees. The trees serve as a defense from 
predators below. This explains why their diets consist mostly of fruits, bird eggs, insects and seeds.

Baboon

Baboon are usually found in the sun-Saharan Africa. Baboon prefer a semi - arid habitat. Africa's climate range 

from tropic to subarctic. Baboons are really flexible species that can live practically on trees or lands. They are 

a species that can almost survive an environment. They eat fruits, grasses, roots, bark, and seeds. Baboon diet is 

flexible like the species themselves, since they live on land and in trees they consumption depends on their location. 

Baboons have powerful jaws, as well as long teeth. This traits helps to defend against predators, as well as complete 

for food. A baboon dentition pattern is 2. 1. 2. 3. much different from that of spider monkeys. 

Gibbons

Gibbons are usually found in Southeast Asia, China and Islands. The climate is warm, humid, and could be 

generally characterized as monsoonal. The gibbon species is the smallest of the apes species. The trees of the region 

are topical, and are abundant in fruit. Gibbons enjoy eating figs, but they also eat bark and leaves because they 

spend most of their time in trees and feed on fruits trees. Gibbon's dental formula is 2. 1. 2. 3. same as baboons. 

They have shortened jaws with long canine teeth as shown in the picture. 

Chimpanzees 

Chimpanzees are usually found all across Central Africa. They inhabit both tropical forest and bordering savannas 

in Africa. They consume ripe fruit and young leaves. Chimpanzees have 32 teeth, 16 on upper jaw and 16 on bottom 

jaw. They use their molars to grind fruits and leaves. Chimpanzees usually hang around on the trees because they 

have everything they need on trees, and that is why they do not come on land. They live on their own or usually 

mother stay with their offspring. The dental formula is 2. 1. 2. 3. same as baboons and gibbons. 

Analogy & Homology

1)   Homologous trait is any characteristic of organisms that is derived from a common ancestor. Homology also means that there are two species that have related parts that do similar things, but that are not exactly the same. The two different species that possess the homologous trait are true seals and sea lions. They both share the homologous trait of a flipper. The two largest marine mammals live together in the sea water.

2)  The difference between Sea Lions and Seals:

• The sea lion flipper is long, hairless and has short claws, while true seals front flipper is short, covered in fur and has long claws.

• Seals uses back flippers for power when swimming and sea lions uses front flippers for power when swimming.

• Seals eat krill, fish, lobster, birds, while sea lions eat squid, octopus, birds and fish.

Seals and Sea lions have different homologs traits because true seals have similar front flippers because their bodies adapted more for water then land. The sea lion rotate his hind legs forward and walk on all four flippers while the true seal will slide his body across land.

3)  The common ancestor of sea lions and seals is the Enaliarctos. The Enaliarctos had a short tail and developed limbs with webbed feet. They lived 24-22 millions years ago. Enaliarctos is said to have both it’s hind and front flippers for swimming. From the history, it shows that the sea lions lost the ability to swim with their hind flippers and seals lost the ability to swim with their front flippers.

4) Sea Lions                                                               Seals

                                                                                

 

Answer (2)

1)  The two different species that possess the analogous trait are butterfly wings and bat wings. They both have structural similarities because both butterfly and bat evolved for the same task and flight.

2)  The analogous trait of butterfly and bat have a lot of things in common such as, they have equal number of caterpillar species, and they both are functionally same (both fly). Species may also have similar traits even though they are not related to each other. This usually results because the species live in similar environments and fill similar ecological roles. The similarity between convergent evolution affected species is called Homoplasy.

3) Yes, both butterfly wings and bat wings can have the common ancestor to possessed this analogous trait. We know that these traits are analogous because their have different structures that is why they are not genetic, they are an analogous.

4) Butterfly Wings Bat Wings

             

Protein Synthesis

Hey there, 
           Here is my DNA strand, I hope you will figure this out..Good Luck 

    ATTUTACCAAGATCGCACGCAAGCAAGCCCCAAATTGATCGCCA

Historical Influences on Darwin

Alfred Russel Wallace had the most influence over Darwin’s development of his Natural selection theory because Wallace and Darwin were working at the same theory and they both came up with the same conclusion. Wallace was one of the scientists who came up with the conclusion of Natural selection, but he did not get the credit for it because Darwin published his theory before him.

        

         Alfred Russel Wallace was born in the poor family, therefore he has to work hard to go around the world and work on his theories. He is best known for independently considering the theory of evolution through natural selection. Wallace’s paper on the natural selection was jointly published with some of the Charles Darwin’s writings. Later, Wallace’s paper prompted Darwin to publish his own ideas in On the Origin of Species. Wallace is also known as a “father of biogeography” because he helped others by discovering a hypothesis on how natural selection produce new biological species.

From the bullet point, the most directly affected by Darwin’s work was “If the environment changes, the traits that are helpful or adaptive to that environment will be different.” He concludes that the individuals with heritable traits better suited to the environment will survive. For example, imagine a population of green and brown color beetles. There are more brown beetles and few green beetles. Day by day, green beetles are dying, so the chances are that the surviving brown beetles are going to have brown baby beetles because this trait has a genetic basis. The end result gave us all the population in brown beetles.

        I think Darwin could not have developed his theory of natural selection without the influence and ideas of Wallace because Wallace encouraged him to publish his theory of Natural selection where he gets his first and big success.  Wallace sent letters to Darwin to show him the progress of theory of natural selection. Darwin got scared that Wallace and he came up with the same conclusion. To get full credit, Darwin published his theory before Wallace. But Wallace got the title of co-founder of the theory of Natural selection.

        Before Darwin published “The Origin of Species,” the attitude of Catholic Church during that time was impartial. After the “The Origin of Species” was published, the attitude from the church was negative. Darwin went against the religion by going against the idea of everything was created by God. During this time, Darwin had some problem to published his book, but he was scared of Wallace will get all the credit of the theory of natural selection. Therefore, indirectly Wallace influence him to publish his book “On the Origin of Species.”

       

http://darwin200.christs.cam.ac.uk/pages/index.php?page_id=d8