Human Variation and Race

Cold: Falling body temperature activates several reflex responses that counteract the lower temperature: blood vessels in the skin constrict, so less heat is lost; muscles start shivering to burn up more food and generate heat; etc. In addition, behavior of the whole individual becomes directed toward helping restore homeostatic balance. 

A short term adaptation would be that the individual looks for a warm place, a coat to put on, etc.A facultative adaptation would be that the individual is paler, because of decrease sunlight people will not tan as much. Eating more. Development adaptations would be lighter skin and eyes. Body shape and size changes. Cultural adaptations would be consuming large quantities of high calorie fatty foods. This significantly increases the basal metabolic rate, which, in turn, results in the production of extra body heat. Heavy clothing, sleeping close to a group of people with their bodies next to each other, active when outdoors.It helps to understand different races when we  study the environmental influences, because it can tell a lot about people. One can see why people are different in terms of physical appearance and behavior. For example in some parts of europe where its cold we can see that people are lighter with blue eyes and in some parts where its hot people have a darker skin tone. 

Source:

http://www.indiana.edu/~p1013447/dictionary/drive.htm

Language Blog

Part 1

I did this assignment with a friend, I engaged in a 15 minute conversation without using any version of a symbolic language. This part of the assignment was very interesting to do. It is difficult to say if it was easy or difficult. Some of the conversation was easy to understand and some took a long time for my friend to understand. The impressions from my friend were that she was trying really hard to understand what I was saying she kept asking me to do a better job. I used my hands to help her make her understand and she did a good job with understanding most of what I was saying. Whenever she thought she knew what I was saying she would yell it out and if she was wrong it would make it harder for me to explain to her that she is wrong.

If my friend and I were from two different cultures I would say my friend definitely had an advantage with communicating in spoken language. I had to work really hard using symbolic language to help her understand and all she had to do was speak and get her point across. I don’t think our culture would have a negative attitude towards people who do not use symbolic language because for people who speak, symbolic language is not a necessity to communicate.  In our culture people who are deaf use symbolic language and the person who speaks needs to understand those symbols otherwise they won’t be able to communicate with each other.  A person who uses spoken language may find it very difficult to learn symbolic language if they are only use to their type of communication.  There are not a lot of people that I know who are deaf; people who chose to learn sign language normally have a close family member or friend who is deaf which is why they want to learn the language so they can communicate with them.

Part II

In the second part of the assignment I spent 15 minutes communicating with my friend without any physical embellishments. I was not able to last 15 minutes without using physical embellishments; it was very difficult for me to communicate with my friend. My friend had become very frustrated and was begging me to start talking or using physical embellishments.  Not being able to speak was already hard but not being able to use my body was even harder. My friend told me that I probably did not read my assignment right and she was sure I was able to use some sort of physical embellishment which was funny she tried really hard to understand me but said she won’t understand a thing that I am trying to explain so it was best that we just gave up. This experiment says a lot about how important using signs to communicate is, if people do not speak we have an alternative method which is the sign language, if you take that away communicating would be very difficult. There are people in our society who have trouble reading body language such as people with Asperger syndrome and people who are blind.  People who are blind can only hear things but are not able to see someone’s body language. For example people don’t normally ask for hugs its a gesture that you normally read through body language but when a person is blind they won’t know what’s going on if a person reaches out and gives a hug or holds the person. An environmental condition when there might be a benefit to not read a person’s body language is difficult to say. Maybe when you are playing poker you may not want to be expressive or use body language. When a person is nervous or experiencing anxiety most people are able to  read that through their body language because they tend to shake their leg, bite their nails so not being able to read body language can be beneficial for someone who is a public speaker.

Piltdown Hoax

Piltdown was an archelogical site with fossil remains of human, ape and other mammals which were found in England. Soon after the discovery an ape's jaw with a cannine tooth worn down like a humans was found. Many paleoanthropoligists accepted the idea that the fossils belonged to a creature who had a human cranium and an ape's jaw. In 1953 a man was exposed as a forgery which ended up resulting in the disovery that the skull was modern and the teeth on the ape's jaw had been filed down.In 1950 it was shown by the fluorine method of relative dating that the Piltdown mandible and cranial bones were considerably younger geologically than the Lower and Middle Pleistocene fossils said to have been found at the same site.

 The piltodwn hoax began in 1912 when Charles Dawson contacted Sir Arthur Smith Woodward about the skull which was found in England. Dawson and Woodward formed an excavation team and by the end of 1912 the rest of the Piltdown man was uncovered. THe piltdown man remained a controversial topic within the scientific community. It was a topic of debate amongst them. The Piltdown forgery demonstrates the fallibility and human quality of scientific knowledge. Steve Jay Gould offered a good reason of why scientists were duped it was because of wishful thinking and cultural bias. After the publication scientists found similarities between the jaw that was discovered and a chimpanzee. 

Some scientists always had doubts about the piltdown man but failed to expose the hoax because of the credentials held by the scientists who made the discovery. I would not want to remove the "human factor" from science even though i believe the chance for errors would not be as much, because if we remove the human factor there would not be enough curiousity and drive to discover new things. Even though this story reveals how scientists are not always accurate and can commit forgery we were able to reveal that and learn from it.This story helps us understand not to believe everything people say. If we ever doubt something it is good to investigate and research it before believing it.

Source

Primates: Locomotion

Lemurs (Prosimians/Strepsirhini)

Environment: Lemurs are naturally found only Madagascar; lemurs live in a variety of habitats. Some live in moist, tropical rainforests, while others live in dry desert areas. They tend to spend most of their time in trees and bushes.

Locomotion:  The locomotion of lemurs depends on the different species.

Indris: Vertical clinging and leaping

Bamboo lemurs: Vertical clinging and leaping

Mesopropithecus: Slow arboreal quadrupedal

True lemurs: Fast arboreal quadrupedal

Ruffed lemurs: Fast arboreal quadrupedal

Ring-tailed Lemur: Partially terrestrial quadrupedal

Monkey lemurs: Highly terrestrial quadrupedal

Sloth lemurs: Sloth-like suspensory locomotion

http://www.buzzle.com/articles/lemurs-behavior.html

Spider Monkey (New World Monkey/Platyrrhini

Environment: Spider Monkeys are arboreal, thriving in the upper canopy, spider monkeys hunt with ease and without the competition of other primates.

Locomotion: Spider monkeys are quadrupedal they use all four limbs when walking and running. They also use suspensory locomotion used when hanging, climbing or moving through the trees and bipedalism, using only two limbs when leaping.

http://www.honoluluzoo.org/spider_monkey.htm

Baboon (Old World Monkey/Cercopithecidae)

Environment: Baboons are found mostly in Africa. Baboons are said to beadaptable and can live around humans. Baboon’s prefer to live around water and tall trees.

Locomotion: Baboons are quadruped they walk on their toes and heels.

Gibbon (Lesser ape/Hylobatidae)

Environment: The different species of gibbons live in different parts of southeast Asia, from China to the Malay peninsula, Burma, and North Sumatra.  They live around old growth tropical rain forests.

Gibbons are known to be acrobatic, their locomotion pattern is brachiating. They move by swinging from one hold to another by arms. They are adapted for this locomotion; they use the length of their forelimbs, hook- like fingers and mobility of their shoulders.

Chimpanzee (Great ape/Hominida)

Environment: Chimpanzee’s live in rainforests they are also able to inhabit drier and less densely treed areas, provided they have access to stands of forest where they can take shelter and search for food.

Locomotion: Chimpanzees usually walk on the soles of feet and the knuckles of their hands. They can walk upright, when they need to use their arms to carry something, but usually don't. They 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 which is called brachiating. 

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

Influence of environment on locomotion: Lemur’s are found in rain forests among various other animals. They stay on the ground and trees. On the ground they are amongst predators so they have the capability to hide on tall tress to protect themselves, this also applies to Spider Monkeys and Gibbons. Spider Monkeys and Gibbons spend most of their time on high trees they are able to swing from one tree to another.Their food is also mostly found on trees such as fruit and on the ground they are able to find plants. Chimpanzees are quadrupeds which help them walk on the ground and climb trees. They also sleep on trees so they won’t be among dangerous animals on the ground. These animals have adapted very well to their environment because of environmental influences their locomotion does slightly differ from one another.

The level of influence the environment has on these animals is tremendous. These primates live with various species and they all compete for food and shelter. Without their different locomotor skills they would not be able to survive with other species in the same environment. The locomotor traits protects these animals, these skills help them find shelter and food. They adapted to the environment that they were secure in which helped them survive. Most of these primates live around tall trees so they learned to climb and leap and when they are on the ground they can climb on the trees again. Without their locomotion skills they would not have the capability to live amongst other species.

Analogy and Homology

Lizard

Turtle

The lizard, turtle and salamander have tails but the two species that 
posses the same homologous trait are the lizard and turtle. Even though  lizards and turtles are both reptiles, they look different. Most people are not aware that turtles have tails because they tend to hide it. Dinosaurs are said to be common ancestors of reptiles and they also had similar traits,like the tail. 

Salamander

The salamander's tail is analogous trait to the lizard and turtle's tail because it is an amphibian. One common ancestor for an amphibian who possesed a tail was a Labyrinthodontia.

Labyrinthodntia

Protein Synthesis

Decode the Code....

GTGCTCTCGTTGCGATCCAAT

Historical Influences on Darwin

Charles Darwin