Human Variation and Race Blog

Blog Post: Human Variation and Race Blog

1. Heat is an environmental stress that impacts the survival of humans by disturbing the homeostasis stage in a pessimistic way. With heat being an environmental stress it would bring heat rashes, heat exhaustion, and heatstroke. “Heat rashes occur when the sweat glands become clogged from too much sweating or lack of circulation to the area. Heat exhaustion may occur after you’ve been exposed to high temperatures for several days and have developed dehydration. Heatstroke is caused by prolonged exposure to high temperatures or by doing physical activity in hot weather. You are considered to have a heatstroke when your body temperature reaches 104 F or higher.”

2.

·         A short term adaptation for heat is sweating. It’s the body’s natural way of trying to cool its self-down. You just need to drink lots of water or something with nutrients so that you may replenish what your body has lost and so that you don’t dehydrate or get a heat stroke while being outside or during your recreational activities.

·         A Facultative Adaptation for heat is the tone of skin. If you have dark skin you can absorb the heat, and with a lighter skin tone you can reflect the heat. For example, is when you wear something dark like black you feel warmer than when you wear something light like white.

 

·         “A developmental Adaptation for heat is bipedalism, when standing on only two legs we are less exposed from the heat of the sun, it hits less surface area on us. It also enabled our skin to have more contact with cooler and faster moving breezes.”

·         A cultural Adaptation for heat is air conditioning, which has been the greatest invention other than the heater during the winter! There’s nothing better than sitting in a cool room, when its 90-110 F outside. We have also modified our clothing to be the bare minimum when it gets hot outside.

3. The benefit of studying heat in on human variation helps us to figure out how to adapt to the environment. We figure out on ways to deal with the heat (ways to avoid it, embrace, and tolerate). We learned that we have to stay hydrated and wear objects that will protect from being harmed (hats, sunglasses, and sunscreen) but yet people still end up being exposed and harmed. We have come up with stuff like air conditioners, breathable clothing, electrolyte drinks, buildings, and swimming pools.

4. In my opinion you can’t really use race for a way of explanation for the variation of adaptation. The definition of race refers to a person’s physical characteristics, such as bone structure and skin, hair, or eye color.