WEEK 8: Human Variation & Race Blog
- HEAT: Extreme heat can kill humans in overbearing situations. Hyperthermia can result in organ failure and soon death. The body should stay around 98.6 degrees to properly function.
- Short-term adaptation: Sweating. In higher temperatures and higher humidity, sweat won’t evaporate fully, thus leaving the human overheated. Facultative adaptation: During high temperatures the body will increase blood flow, extract salt from the body through sweating. The salts should be replaced along with the water to properly maintain balance. Developmental adaptations: Skinny people with longer limbs are the result of environmental heat over the course of generations. The longer limbs make it easier for body heat to lose. Short fatter people tend to be around cooler environments. Cultural adaptations: Clothes, houses, air conditioners, ice, and more are examples of cultural adaptations. Humans when they get hot tend to wear less clothes, turn their a/c on, sit in a house away from the sun, and maybe indulge in a nice cup of ice cream.
- We can learn a lot about how humans respond to environmental stresses. This can open up different sources to avoid these stresses in the future. WIthout studies, we would hinder our chances of true long term survival. If we never studied the fact that humans sweat for a reason, we wouldn’t learn what we should do to prevent hyperthermia, and we wouldn’t learn why sweat is actually beneficial. We wouldn’t learn how to replenish the water and salt that the body expelled. Thus making it harder for long term survival.
- Race has a lot to do with climate stresses. The Eskimos tend to eat fatty foods and are more acceptant to cold temperatures. The East Africans tend to have super long limbs and are more likely harmed in colder situations. The East Africans have longer limbs that allow them to lose body heat better than the Eskimo, and vice versa. Every environmental stress over time has resulted in different human traits.
I found this information to be facinating, I've never thought about short fatter people tending to be around cooler envirnments.
ReplyDeleteSkinny people with longer limbs are the result of environmental heat over the course of generations. Short fatter people tend to be around cooler environments.
Good analysis. I would like a little more discussion on the facultative adaptation. How is the sweating in the facultative response different from the short-term sweating?
ReplyDeleteI think you are confusing "race" with "culture". We can study different cultures, which are defined by different learned behaviors, but that is not how race is usually defined by physical characteristics (skin color, facial features, skeletal traits, etc.). I agree that it is valuable to study cultures (and to study them across clines!) but can you study variation in terms of "race" in any meaningful way? Does everyone agree on the definition of races?
Good post there is some good information here. I never knew that skinny people lose heat in there bodies faster then a bigger person. One thing I don't agree with is that race has a lot to do with climate stess, but the environment these people live in cause there bodies to change over time no matter what their race.
ReplyDeleteYou had a really good post and I found a lot of interesting information out. I did not know thatskinny people tend to be around hotter environments and larger people tend to be in colder environments.
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