The one environmental stressor I am going to discuss is HEAT. In a hot environment, heat causes food to obtain bacteria faster, which will spoil the food that is needed for survival. In addition, the populations in a hot environment tend to have longer limbs or appendages that help them release heat faster to keep the body cool through evaporative cooling. Heat can be fatal if the core temperature of a human body reaches above 105 degrees Fahrenheit. This is called hyperthermia.
Humans have adapted to heat stress in four different ways:
Facultative adaptation is the body size or an individual or weight.
Developmental adaptation is how the legs, arms and other appendages grow longer in hotter climates
Cultural adaptation would be the use of the air conditioner or spices to help slow down the spread of bacteria
The benefits of studying human variation are beneficial to understand how the body reacts to different environmental stressors. This type of study leads to advances in technology that assists humans to be able to adjust to these types of environments. Before the invention of the air conditioner, individuals in the United States did not live in the deserts of Arizona or the plains in Texas in big numbers. If studies were only done in one type of environment, how do we know why populations in extreme heat are taller and thinner than individuals in colder climates or the why there is more of a population in certain environments. This information can be used to know what type of materials to use when building shelter.
I would use race to understand why individuals migrated to other parts of the world. Environmental influences is a better way to understand human variation because race does not have a genetic basis or a characteristic, trait or gene to distinguish individuals between races.
Good job pulling in the pathology aspects of heat, with the increased exposure to disease.
ReplyDeleteA couple of points:
Is drinking water the short-term adaptation or is the perspiration the adaptation?
I was looking for more description on the facultative and the developmental adaptations.
How would race help you understand why populations migrated?
Even though we chose the same topic your is very different then mine in a good way. I really like your perspective on this. For example you didn't choose the obvious sunblock method. Instead you talked about air conditioning. Your pictures are helpful and interesting. Excellent job!
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your post and i did like how you used bacteria in food being a negative effect because it is something that i find in my kitchen when i forget to put the food inside the fridge and it gets spoiled. Yuck.
ReplyDeleteI liked how you use the air conditioning as a method because that is so important here when it is super hot.
I enjoyed reading your post. The images are great! I wanted to read yours because you did heat and i did high altitudes so i wanted to learn more about adapting to heat. It was so interesting to know that a way to adapt to heat is to have longer limbs to release heat to keep the body cool. I would have never thought would be a way to adapt to the heat. That was very interesting. It is always healthy to drink plenty of fluids to re-hydrate your body. I learned that the hard way.
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