1) The environmental stress that I choose is heat. Very high levels of heat can cause hyperthermia and therfore, negatively inpacting the survival of humans. Extremely high temperatures can cause lack of bodily fluids which leads to dehydration. If those temperatures continue for a few days, the internal organs of a human will start to deteriate and this will cause death.
2) There are four ways we have adapted to the heat stress and they are as follows:
a. We sweat through small pores in our skin to cool off our body. This helps to regulate our internal temperature so that we could servive in extreme heat.
b. Our skin tends to get darker to adapt to the heat stress. Melanin acts as a protective biological shield against ultraviolet radiation. It helps to prevent sunburn damage and DNA changes that can cause skin cancer. 
c. Our bodies change in shape to adapt to the heat stress. Our bodies get tall, slender, and have longer limbs to assist in the loss of body heat.
d. Our bodies adapted to different diets to be able to coupe with the heat stress. We most often eat cold desserts and fresh foods during hot climates.
3) The benefits of studying human variation across environmental clines are to let us know why our skin is dark, our eyes are the color they are, and many other traits. Information like this is useful and can help us figure out ways to protect us from many environmental factors. One example could be to figure out ways for our body not to dehydrate in extreme heat besides drinking fluids.
4) The ways I would use race to understand the heat adaptation would be to notify people that the skin color is a way for a human to coupe with the ultraviolet rays produced by the sun. The study of environmental adaptation is a better way to understand human variation than race because it explains to us different environmental factors that we have to coupe with to be able to survive. For example, our skin gets darker the closer one lives to the equater and this is to coupe with heat and to avoid sun damage to our skin.
Excellent! My only correction will be that melanin production is actually a facultative response to solar radiation stress, not heat, but it is common to put the two together given that hot areas also usually have lots of sun. The exception to that is in areas of high altitude. Cold temperatures, but higher altitudes with less atmosphere between you and the sun actually results in higher radiation stress. Nice job.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your post. Very well put together and the pictures are great. I did not know that if internal temperatures continue to rise, the organs begin to deteriate themselves. This would make sense as to why we are always told to keep hydrated during summer months. Not only for comfort, and to quinch thirst, but to also regulate body temperatures.
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