Human Variation and Race Blog

Body temperature in humans tends to fluctuate only in a narrow range about the value 98.6° F(37.0° C.). When the temperature rises above the normal range, corrective reflexes such as perspiration and reduced metabolism go into action to restore the steady state. In very cold climates, there is a constant danger of developing hypothermia, which is a life threatening drop in core body temperature to subnormal levels.  However, individual differences in metabolism , hormone levels, physical activity, and even the time of day can cause it to be as much as 1° F. (.6° C.) higher or lower in  individuals.  Hypothermia begins to occur when the core body temperature drops to 94° F. (34.4° C.).  Below 85° F. (29.4°C.), the body cools more rapidly because its natural temperature regulating system (in the hypothalamus  usually fails.  The now rapid decline in core body temperature is likely to result in death.

Our body’s reaction to heat loss is involuntary and driven by the hypothalamus, the tiny gland in the brain acting as a thermostat. Because of the stresses due to short-term adaptations, when a deviation goes beyond either the upper or the lower threshold, energy is mobilized to restore the steady state to its optimal value the biochemical and reflex defenses function adequately to protect some constancies.  Your teeth chatter, and your body shivers therefore producing a short-term warming effect. Faculty adaptations in cold would be the human physiological response to cold commonly including the evolution of more massive, compact bodies with relatively less surface area, increasing basal metabolic rate, fat insulation of vital organs, and change in blood flow patterns. Developmental adaptations to cold would be the cold favoring short round persons with short arms and legs, narrow noses and heavier than the average layer of body fat. These adaptations provide a minimum surface area in relation to body mass for minimum heat loss. Many people living in freezing climates drink alcohol to warm themselves.  This increases blood flow to the body extremities, thereby providing a feeling of warmth.  However, it results only in a temporary warming and can speed up the loss of heat from the vital internal organs, resulting in more rapid death from hypothermia.  A much more effective cultural response to extremely cold temperatures is the use of insulating clothing, houses, and fires.  People all over the world also adapt by limiting outdoor activities to warmer times of the day.  In some societies, sleeping in family groups with bodies pushed up against each other is also done in order to minimize heat loss during the cold months of the year.

The benefits of studying human variation from this perspective across environmental clines helps us to see how we humans can adapt to different kind of environmental stresses, and how our bodies react when exposed to all this certain pressures. It also gives us an idea of what our own limits are and how we all humans when exposed to these things have mange to survive under these circumstances. Information from explorations like this are useful to help us since we know are informed of what we could be exposed to for example when being in extreme cold and not being adapted to it you might certainly be on a risk for acquiring hypothermia.

To understand the variation of the adaptations I listed in #2 I don’t think there is a way I would use race since all kind of people could someday been exposed to this environmental stresses not counting the ones that are already accustomed and imposed to their usual environments. The study of environmental influences on adaptations is a better way to understand human variation than by the use of race because as I have already said everybody could have a chance to being exposed as in this case extreme cold weather no matter their race, environmental influences are different all around the world it is just a matter of being capable and flexible to adapt to it.

 

Language Blog

Being in a conversation were I was not permitted to speak and having people who could, was a little challenging. Using hand signs, body language, and non-verbal vocalization was somewhat hard to transmit because of what I wanted my partners to understand about what I was saying. I know some basic ASL; therefore I kind of know how to start a basic conversation, but not being able to use it, was also kind of hard since most of the time I was tempted to do it. The expressions of my partners during the conversation was a little awkward since we were literally playing the “guess what I’m saying game." I remember sometimes trying really hard for them to understand me and when they would they would be like “ohhh so that’s what you meant” They did alter their way of communicating with me due to the absence symbolic communication since our nature of communication is through voice mainly, we of course use hand signs to help us our project or transmit what we mean in an everyday conversation but voice is to me one of the strongest features we humans posses.  The culture that would have the advantage in communicating with more complex ideas would be the speaking one, voice emphasizes our ability to communicate and express our ideas, emotions, and feelings due to our tone voice.  The speaking culture would simply relate to them in a more precise patient manner. In my opinion I think that they would try to understand them but their way of communication would be drastically slow and not that precise. Individuals in our culture that have difficulty communicating with spoken language would be Deaf and special need people.   Living from my own experiences I happen to have a Down syndrome little brother. He happens to be three years old by now but he hasn’t yet developed his speech due to his situation we use both speaking and sign language but when he tries to tell us something he would practically use signs so we can understand him. Know that he’s little it is kind of normal for everyone in the house but also happen to had met a few people who were Deaf. This affects the ones that we speak to interact with these individuals because along with them we have to get adapted to a new environment and new techniques in being able to communicate with other individuals who do not have the capacity to communicate through voice. It takes lots of patience and time to interact with them but it is also amazing how besides voice humans have developed other techniques to communicate as in this case sign language.

Part of two of the experiment to me was even more difficult than the first one.  Truly I was not able to last for the whole 15 minutes of using only speech for communication. What made this experiment difficult for me was the absence of facial expressions and hand movements, at first I thought it was not going to be that hard only using my voice and not raising or lowering the tone but after three minutes or so passed I was able to realize how some of the physical embellishments are important and necessary, in this case the facial gestures are in all human’s way for communication. My partners seemed to be really affected by my communication limitations since meanwhile and after the conversation she would tell me that she felt that she was talking to a robot or some kind of toy being programmed but not showing feelings about what was being expressed.  In my opinion I think that non-speech language techniques are really important in our ability to communicate effectively since we need to show emotion and accompanied our speech with hand movements, that is our common human way of communicating and how we are used to. I believe that there are people who have difficulty reading body language therefore having a little trouble on understanding and reading it. An example of adaptive benefit to possessing the ability to read body language would be when a parent tells their son/daughter to do something and even if they are not willing to do it and go for it because it ‘s a command and feel that they have to do it since their parents are the ones that have authority over them but seeing their son/daughter facial gestures they can mostly read what their body language is transmitting for example a disagreement face not wanting to do what they were asked to. Environmental conditions where there might be a benefit not reading boy language would be when someone is making fun of someone else, talking something negative about someone else or when there is rivalry between two or a group of people because it would lead to complications and make things worse.

Piltdown Hoax

The Piltdown Hoax was discovered in 1912 by amateur archeologist Charles Dawson and his group of workers in the Piltdown quarry in Sussex, England. Charles was digging in a gravel pit a found a piece of ancient skull. After examining the skull he found that it looked rather primitive and was thick in nature. After the discovery of the skull fragment Dawson invited leading geologist of London’s Natural History Museum Sir Arthur Woodward to view his discovery. Later after finding an ape like jaw with human like teeth containing 2 worn molars, as well as stone tools and various mammal bones that indicated the gravels were ancient. These fossils were exactly what anthropologists were hoping to find, and moreover, they were found in England, not in some far away land such as Africa or Asia. The skull bone resembled that of a human, whereas the jawbone was extremely light and bore a perfect resemblance to the jaw of an ape. The only similarity to humans in the jaw were the molars. In December 1912, the fossils were presented to the scientific community by Dawson and Woodward, and they proposed that a new genus, Eoanthropus dawsoni, be added to the hominid family. Soon thereafter, scientists such as Smith Woodward began to visualize what the rest of the individual might look like, and in 1913, Father Theiland de Chardin discovered a canine tooth that closely matched Woodward's predictions. The tooth was made to order for the "missing link. Almost forty years later, in 1953, Piltdown Man was exposed as a forgery, mainly through the work of Dr Kenneth Oakley.  He showed that the skull was from a modern human and that the jawbone and teeth were from an orangutan. 

            The human faults that come into play here in this scenario are the fact that forgery in science can  occur in such an easy way that even professionals got caught in this catastrophe since they believed at first until everything was proved wrong. These faults negatively impact the scientific process because in some of these cases people don’t take science seriously. They think that many of what has been proven for example theories that have been discovered to this date might all be part of a fake fact therefore not giving any of the credit and attention science should have. Ambition also plays a big part in this scenario since it pursued this man to do something that in this case created a controversy among the science world. He wanted to be the first one to discover or get the credit over this event he didn’t wanted to wait for science to do its part. Therefore he speed things up and made people believe something that wasn’t real putting science in the brink of judgment as whether to take it seriously or not. It is true that many people wanted to believe it and that’s why it lasted for so long but they couldn’t see how it affected science as a whole and them being blind for such an important event in history.

            The positive aspects of the scientific process that were responsible for revealing the skull to be a fraud were more modern scientific equipment. In 1949 fluoride dating showed that the fossils were quite young. Further study of the fossils in 1953 by Kenneth Oakley ,Joseph S. Weiner and Wilfred Le Gros Clark found obvious signs of forgery. The jaw was from a modern orangutan. The molars and the stray canine had been filed flat to make them appear more human. The skull bones were from a modern human. All the bones had been soaked in a solution that had hardened them and imparted a stain that made them appear extremely old.

            To reduce the chance of errors like this I don’t think that it is possible to remove the “human” factor since it is us humans the ones that have the knowledge to perform science. Animals can’t do this, our brains are the ones developed and capable to think, test, resolve, and do this certain things in order for science to work. I wouldn’t want to remove the "human" factor from science because after all we learn from our mistakes things like this are the ones that open our eyes into reality and to be more secure into what we are exposed to in an everyday basis.

In my opinion I think that you don’t always have to believe what you are told, meaning you have to do some or more research about such important things. People might tell you something but you have the right to investigate whether it is true or false.  People always lie and we can’t change that fact but we can confirm what they are saying is the true .My mom always tells me “always believe half of what a person tells you” and I think we should put that in practice on things this important and on the ones that have a huge impact on our society.          

Comparative Primate ( Sociality and Mating Patterns)

Lemurs (Prosimians/Strepsirhini)- Inhabit the Island of Madagascar and live in a variety of habitats. Some live in moist, tropical rainforests, while others live in dry desert areas. They spend most of their time in trees and bushes.  They are said to be an important species to the island of Madagascar since they disperse the seeds from the fruit they eat which then grow into new plants. This is important to the forests in Madagascar since they are on a procedure of destruction at a very high rate. They reached Madagascar early in primate evolution and became isolated reproductively from the African mainland about 250 miles away. Ring-tailed lemurs live in multi-male/multi-female groups, averaging 10-12 individuals. Females are dominant and therefore are the most powerful member and focal point of the group. The size of each of the groups is unstable with smaller and larger than average groups having disadvantages. Males voluntarily leave their natal troop at age three and continue to emigrate to new troops throughout their lifetime on the other side females remain with their natal troop throughout their life. “Females begin to reproduce in their second or third year of life and will give birth to one offspring each year. Lemur troops living in the same forest will have very close mating and birth seasons because reproduction coincides with food seasonality and availability and females display mate choice behavior by either accepting or denying a male’s approaches” http://www.bio.davidson.edu/people/vecase/behavior/Spring2003/Dennis/mating.html

Spider Monkeys (New World Monkey/Platyrrhini)- live in the tropical rain forests of central and South America, and occur as far north as Mexico. They are able to maintain a powerful grip on branches even though they have no thumbs. They are social and gather in groups of up to two- or three-dozen animals. At night, the groups split up into smaller sleeping parties of a half dozen or fewer. Spider monkeys find food in the treetops and feast on nuts, fruits, leaves, bird eggs, and spiders. They can be noisy animals and often communicate with many calls, screeches, barks, and other sounds. Spider monkeys are extremely social animals. In fact, if one is kept alone in captivity, it can easily die of loneliness unless its owner gives it a great deal of attention. In the wild, these monkeys tend to congregate in groups of 40–50, although they break up into smaller groups during the course of the day. Each large group has its own territory, and members of the group patrol it daily on specific paths. Spider monkeys rarely enter neighboring territories. Whenever spider monkey territories over-lap, the monkeys somehow readjust them over time. 

http://science.jrank.org/pages/6378/Spider-Monkeys-behavior.html#ixzz14wDpmOjh

Females give birth to only a single baby every two to five years. Due to the environment they live in mothers tend to take a lot of care of their babies for the first year of their lives, and often move about with their offspring clinging to their backs. To have access to more food the groups might tend to stay together and separated from other groups.

http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/spider-monkey/

  

Baboons (Old World Monkey/Cercopithecidae)- There are five different species of baboons and they all live in Africa or Arabia. They are some of the world's largest monkeys, and males of different species average from 33 to 82 pounds. Usually they prefer savanna and other semi-arid habitats, though a few live in tropical forests. Many species of cercopithecines sleep in trees or on cliff faces and spend their days in large groups foraging for food on grasslands.”Baboons are very social animals and live in groups. “Baboon social behavior is matrilineal, in which a network of social relationships are sustained over three generations from the female members of the species. A troop of baboons can range in number from 30 to over 200 members, depending upon the availability of food. The baboon troop consists of related bands composed of several clans, where each clan may have a number of smaller harem families made up of mothers, their children, and a male”. The reproduction of the baboons is limited first because of scarcity of food on the dry steppe as well as on the savanna. Many young baboons die from starvation or malnutrition, and the competition for food therefore plays a big role for the parents who have to feed their young. There is also a fierce competition between the males for access to mate with the females. Baboons are rarely monogamous and the females tend to stick together most of the time as well as the males therefore within my judgment I think that since most of the baboon females are pregnant most of the time they get adapted to the environment of always being around or near the males.

http://www.agner.org/cultsel/chapt7/

 

Gibbons (Lesser ape/Hylobatidae)- live in old growth tropical rain forests in Southeast Asia and are arboreal which means that they spend most of their lives in trees. There are nine species of gibbons and they are an endangered species due to the rapid deforestation. They have very similar senses as us, and are omnivores which mean that they eat plants and meat. They are social animals that are active during the day. They live in small, stable family groups consisting of a mated pair and their immature offspring.  Gibbon mates usually stay together for life. They are fully grown and able to reproduce at 12-13 years old. Female gibbons are pregnant for about 7 months and usually have a single baby at a time; twins are rare. Newborn gibbons are hairless except for a small cap of fur on the top of the head. They are weaned at about 1 year old. Young gibbons stay with their mother for about 6 years. The young then venture out to start a new family group of their own. When parents take care of their offspring it ensures the next generation and the extreme territorialism is reaction to overcrowding and pressure to have the young survive.  
 

Chimpanzee (Great ape/Hominidae)-they live in a wide variety of habitats, including tropical rain forests woodlands, swamp forests, and grasslands in western Africa.  They can walk upright (when they need to use their arms to carry something), but usually don't. Chimps are also very good at climbing trees, where they spend much of their time, including when they sleep. They can swing from branch to branch in the trees. Chimpanzees are fully grown and able to reproduce at 12-13 years old. Female chimpanzees are pregnant for about 8.5-9 months and usually have a single baby at a time; twins are rare. Female chimpanzees carefully nurture their young. Babies can grasp their mother's fur to ride on the mother's back at about 6 months. After they are weaned, chimpanzees begin to build their own sleeping nests out of vegetation and not use their mother's nest anymore. Young chimpanzees stay with their mother for about 7 years. Communication is used to teach the young the many skills that they need to survive in their environment, and to convey information to other chimpanzees about food, social relationships, distress, mating, etc.

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/apes/chimp/

 

From doing research about these primates I learned and evaluated on how much the environment has to do with the way they live, eat, and mate. Females are the ones that mostly take care of the offspring while like in the case of the lemurs the males voluntarily leave their natal troops. Also female reproduction is dependent upon the environment and the resources that it offers to these certain species.

Analogy/Homology Blog!

                                         Analogy/Homology Blog!

Homologous Trait

1a. Whales collectively inhabit all the world's oceans with annual population growth rate estimates for various species ranging from 3-13%. They are particularly intelligent mammals who place much value on their families. "Like all mammals, whales breathe air, are warm-blooded, nurse their young with milk from mammary glands, and have body hair. Lastly they communicate with one another using whale songs, which often sound very high-pitched to the human ear".

Humans are primates and are uniquely adapt at utilizing systems of communication for self-expression, the exchange of ideas, and organization. Humans create complex social structures composed of many cooperating and competing groups, from families to nations.

b. The homologous trait concerning these two species would be the whale fins and the human hands." Whale fins are adapted for swimming and human hands are adapted for dexterous manipulation". Even though the whale fin does not look like a human's hand compared in shape and size beneath the surface “both of the skeletal structures underlying these two appendages are very similar since they both evolved from a similar structure in a common ancestor”. The fundamental bones are essentially the same but adjusted to serve different purposes.

c. Since Humans and whales are both mammals it is certain that they both have had a common ancestor a long time ago which is the Dimerodon Grandis referred to as mammal-like reptile, based on characteristics of the skull and dentition.

 

Analogous Traits

2a..Barnacles are exclusive marine and sessile suspension feeders that have 2 nektonic(active swimming larval stages). They are encrusters attaching themselves permanently to a hard substrate.

Limpet is a name applied to all those snails that have a simple shell. They eat at night, because they feel more safer moving around. They always go back to the same spot after eating and sometimes they use the same spot for their whole life.

b. Even though barnacles and limpets look very similar from the outside and they both live in the ocean adapting to the same environment they are very different in the inside (their organisms differ) suggesting that they are not closely related.

c. Their common ancestor which was probably a worm-like animal did not had a conical shell. “Their similar shells evolved because both lineages faced a similar challenge: a rocky,wave-swept environment teeming with predators ready to pry a small creature off a rock for lunch and conical, hard-to-get-a-grip-on armor offers a lot of protection in such an environment. These lineages evolved their shells independently."

                            

            Barnacle                                                                            Limpet

                             

Protein Synthesis Assignment!

TTAGTACACCCTTTCAGGGAACGGTAGTGTCTGAACAGGAATTTTCATCGGCC

Good Luck!

Thomas Malthus: A great influence in the development of Darwin's theory!

Having done some research I would say that Thomas Malthus had the most influence over Darwin’s development of his theory of natural selection. Malthus famous essay “ An Essay on the Principle of Population” became to be one of the most important bases of Charles Darwin’s thoughts since it gave him support to the discovery of natural selection. His essay affirmed that population growth no matter what “would always overpower food supply growth creating perpetual states of hunger, disease, and struggle. The natural, ever-present struggle for survival caught the attention of Darwin, and he extended Malthus' principle to the evolutionary scheme.” Darwin also noted that "the population-food imblance postulated by Malthus would lead to competition between offspring." http://www.allaboutscience.org/thomas-malthus-faq.htm

Most accordingly the second and fourth bullet points are the essential explanations as the most directly affected by Thoma's Malthus work. The resourses that are needed for an individual to reproduce are limited which will  in fact prevent them from doing so. Confirming once again malthus' beliefs that since population growth would always overpower the food supply then this would cause serious hunger, desease, and cause lots of struggle for certain individuals to survive and reproduce more offspring. Also organisms to better acces to resources will be more likely to survive and reproduce than organism with a lack of them. Therefore if a certain individual reproduces as a rabit does then resources will be scatter and individuals will always be in constant competition to acquire them.

In my opinion I think that Darwin would of been able to develop his theory of natural selection without the help of this certain individual. If Malthus wouldn't had existed I am sure that some one else would of been able to have similar thoughts or Darwin himself by developing his thoughts a little more would of gotten to the same conclusion.

Despite what others though or believed according to religious views Darwin still published his book " The Origin of Species" This didn't stoped him from being able to tell the people through his book how we got here and how natural selection applies to all of us. A different explanation of the existence of species.