1.  Discuss specifically how this environmental stress negatively impacts the survival of humans by disturbing homeostasis.
 

Heat is one of the environmental stresses that negatively impacts the survival of humans by disturbing homeostasis because it causes headaches; fatigue, nausea, vomiting and reduces your energy levels when exposed to high temperatures. Heat can have negative effects on humans if the environment is too hot over long periods of time. For example, being exposed to high temperature can cause dehydration by making you lose fluids by excessive sweating.

Dehydration happens when the amount of fluid coming out of the body exceeds the amounts of fluids going into the body. In a high temp environment, this can happen rather quickly so even though dehydration can occur in any climate, heat is a major factor in someone becoming dehydrated. When you have too much water coming out of the body, the body can become unbalance and can even lead to death. 

Another way that heat can negativity impact the survival of humans is by causing someone to have heat strokes. A heat stroke occurs when the body’s temperature reaches over 104 degrees.  Anyone who participates in outdoor activities are more prone to having a heat strokes as well as heat exhaustion. All because of being out in the heat for long periods of time or the sun, without drinking water to hydrate, will cause you to have a heat strokes and have heat exhaustion. I personally have experienced this while playing softball one day on a really hot day. It’s dangerous because you slowly start not to feel good but your unaware of what is happening. You just think that you’re really tired. This is why it is not a good idea to do out door activates on a really hot day. This is also why during the summer times we get warnings on when it is too hot to be outside and when we are to stay in during certain hours of the day when the sun is at its hottest. 

   2.  Identify 4 ways in which humans have adapted to this stress, choosing one specific adaptation from each of the different types of adaptations listed above (short term, facultative, developmental and cultural).  Include images of the adaptations.  (5 pts each/ 20 pts total)

Short term: One way that humans have adapted to heat is the capacity to dissipate heat by sweating and is seen in all human populations to an almost equal degree, with the average number of sweat glands per individual (1.6 million). It is also known as evaporative cooling, a mechanism that has evolved to the greatest degree in humans. This is how our bodies are able to maintain homeostasis from heat stress. 

Facultative: Another mechanism for radiating body heat is vasodilation, which occurs when capillaries near the skin’s surface widen to increase blood flow to the skin. The visible effect of vasodilation is flushing, or increased redness and warming of the skin, like the face. The physiological effect is to permit heat, carried by the blood from the interior of the body, to be emitted from the skin’s surfaces to the surrounding air. 

 

Developmental: Body size and proportions are also important in regulating body temperatures. A developmental adaption to heat is the development of long and lean body shapes, both the core and the limbs which help to provide more surface area for dispersing heat. Two rules that pertain to the relationship between body size, body proportions, and climate are Bergmann’s rule and Allen’s rule. 

Cultural: Humans have adapted to heat short term by utilizing the technologies that we have today to stay cool during really hot days. Staying hydrated is an important factor in staying cool and nowadays you have an unlimited supply of drinks you can buy to help aide in the hydration process. Having access to an air conditioner or swamp cooler are other ways on staying cool short term during really hot days. With the technologies of today, we have access to cooler air in our cars, homes and our work spaces. We also have fans that help circulate the air to cool the room down. There are umbrellas to use, misters, mister fans etc. Depending where you live, there are different methods we use but in general, it’s all the same objective, stay cool and hydrated.

         3.  What are the benefits of studying human variation from this perspective across environmental clines?  Can information from explorations like this be useful to help us in any way?  Offer one example of how this information can be used in a productive way.  (5 pts)

The benefits of studying human variation from this perspective across environmental clines is being able to study the changes of various sample populations over time. It allows us to really have a chance to evaluate and see the different environmental stressors that contribute to affecting any population. Now if you took one a particular population with one group of traits and put them in another environment that is different from their own, then those traits in which they were born with, you’ll see an evolutionary adaption to the new environment. 

Humans are coping with infectious disease as we alter the environment and as global climate change facilitates the spread of disease vectors. Studying the high rate of sickle cell anemia in black populations, scientist can identify and come up with treatments for this disease. It helps scientist find cures in order to help other population dealing with the same disease. Also studying rickets in fair skinned people can help us understand why they would need sunlight and how much of it can they have and find the right balance to avoid this disease in the fair skinned population.

4.   How would you use race to understand the variation of the adaptations you listed in #2?  Explain why the study of environmental influences on adaptations is a better way to understand human variation than by the use of race.

I would use race to understand the variation of the adaptions by classifying race as a geographic groups of people who have the similar sets of adaptions to the same environments in which they occupy. Because of the environmental stressors this can help us predict what changes might occur within the human population. When studying the environmental influences of a group of people over a long period of time, you can see patterns which evolved as adaptation to those outside stressors. For example, natural selection is the process whereby organism better adapted to their environment to survive and produce more offspring. 

The study of environmental influences on adaptations is a better way to understand human variation by the use of race because this way we can see how our ancestors developed and changed over millions of years to better understand our origins. As we grow as a population we are learning and adapting to our ever changing environment. We get to learn about the past and how we came to be today. I believe this can also help us put our differences aside because we judge each other by skin color, eye color and pretty much, physical traits. This has showed me that we are more similar and closely related than we think. Hopefully this can help us in dealing with racism because this helps us see that our differences are just response to our environment, not the product of anything else. Race is a modern idea that has no genetic basis.

Part 1: This was a fascinating experience for me. I have never participated in anything like this before and I am glad that I was able to take part in it. In the beginning I believed this experiment to be an easy one but I was proven wrong. It was difficult to keep yourself from speaking because it feels so natural to communicate especially among your friends. It was also very hard not to move any part of my body. I never really thought about it before, but being able to express yourself through expression seems nearly impossible to do when only speaking and no hand gestures. I had the most trouble with part 2 because of it. 

I also had trouble not turning to use sign language because I know a little. I felt like I went through all the avenues of communication and then realizing I couldn’t use any of it. It only encourages me to get creative with my hand gestures.  I conducted this experiment among my friends. After I explained what we were going to do they did alter the way they communicated with me because of my absence to communicate. They began to ask me silly questions that required me to laugh and I did but I held it and let out a chuckle or two. They also made jokes and had me engaged throughout the conversation. 

I would say that my friends were in control but one more than the others and his name is Jason. Jason was the one who seemed like took over asking the topics and the rest followed and responded. They would keep me engage by directing a particular question towards me for all to hear and stare at me while I was trying to respond. It almost seems like I was the show on stage, Jason the director and my other friends the audience that laughed and made comments. I was never excluded from the conversation; I was the source of entertainment. Overall I do believe it was a balance of power among my friends towards the middle of the conversation but Jason initiated the first few conversations.  

The culture that doesn’t speak has the advantage in communicating complex ideas within their population. I believe this to be so because a culture that uses hand signs, body language, non-verbal vocalization can be more expressive with that they are trying to communicate with the other culture. The types of attitudes that the speaking culture might have towards the culture that does not use symbolic language is in the way that they behave. They keep to their cultures because it might be easier to communicate with someone of the same form of language.

Part 2: This particular experiment was much harder than expected because it was difficult to speak and not tag an expression along. My partner was observing me while I spoke and looked at me looking confused because my tone of voice was not matching what I was saying. I mean I was trying to tell him something funny but could not add anything to make it seem more brought to life. My partner did have a little hard time understanding me because of my consistent tone of voice. When I was speaking, there was no emotion behind it and he was looking at my face to see if it moved. 

What this experiment says about or use of “signs” in our language is that it is essential to what we are trying to convey in our conversation with our partner. Non-speech language techniques are important because the process of sitting there, it made me concentrate more on what I was to say.  When we communicate with someone a person’s body language can tell you all about what is really going on. A person’s body language can express an urgency, or describe something to better understand what happen, happening and about to happen. 

The adaptive benefit of possessing the ability to read body language is being able to read a situation that might be dangerous for that person. If you need something, having the ability to read a person can aide in bringing them any resources they may need. You can communicate among your culture to come up with a plan for hunting as well. You also attract your mate through expressions because it creates feelings of butterflies in your stomach and all in turn is the feeling of love and compassion. Thus reproducing with that mate and having reproduction success. 

There are people who have difficulty reading body language and they are those that are cannot see, the blind. In a situation where perhaps body language does not give you reliable information is when you see someone run out the door of store with a bag. You don't know what is really happening. You don't have enough information and is easy to make assumptions.