Its heating up now!

Humans are easily adaptable to dry hot climates compared to humid climates and especially cold climates. Heat, an environmental stress, can prove to be very dangerous to us even though we are able to adapt to it quite easily. given how extremely hot temperatures can cause us to suffer from hyperthermia in which are core body temperatures (which are normal at 98 degrees Fahrenheit) rise beyond the normal temperature with it becoming life threatening at 105 degrees Fahrenheit and higher which will lead to organ deterioration and death.

Short term adaption: the most common short term adaption to heat is our ability to sweat through are 1.6 million sweat glands. Sweat cools are body through evaporative cooling that occurs when we sweat and our sweat evaporates


Facultative adaption: body hair varies in length. however shorter body hair increases the effects of evaporative cooling from sweat while longer hair decreases those effects and actually aid in retaining heat.


Developmental adaptation: having greater mass and shorter height aids in retaining heat and isn't suitable in high heat areas or situations as a person would heat up quickly. However being leaner and taller with longer arms and legs lessens the amount of heat that is retained. in addition people in hotter climates have darker skin while people in colder climates generally have lighter skin

Cultural adaptation: in order to accommodate hot weather we have designed thinner and less restrictive clothes. in addition we also have air conditioning and fans which make the area they are installed in cooler despite how hot it may be outside of said area.


studying human perspective across environmental clines is beneficial because it eliminates biased based on race. In addition its more accurate then judging by race since a persons skin color can change depending on their exposure to the sun with greater exposure resulting in becoming darker then you originally were while less exposure can make one paler in addition there are diseases that can cause one to change pigmentation and like vitilgo.


I would use race more like an aftermath of adaptation to show that environmental changes lead to the different variations of races that are accustomed to different climates.
 

Wonders of Language

Part 1:

        Initially I only planned on having a conversation with one of my friends but it ended up becoming a group conversation between me, my friend, and my friend's 7 yr old sister. So it ended up being a bit harder than I expected to communicate without talking or writing or body language but overall not all that bad since I was able to do slight head movements for certain responses that my friend was able to understand, although my friends younger sister kept asking why I wasn't talking and grew annoyed by my "lack" of action. In contrast my friend treated it like a normal conversation with me because he seemed to know I was paying attention in the conversation.
      As far as control of the conversation I pretty much and zero control in the conversation since I was unable to really voice my opinion in anyway or drive the conversation in any direction. meanwhile my friends younger sister had no control mainly because she was trying to figure out why I wasn't talking so ultimately my friend had complete control over where the conversation was going. my friend's little sister mainly asked questions although they weren't relevant to the conversation in question while my friend mainly went on talking while I listened and wished I could speak instead of give slight head movements when he asked me something.
     If we were all cultures clearly my friend's culture would be able to communicate complex ideas among themselves since they have the power of language and overall they would have an advantage over my culture that is unable to use language to communicate. In a modern situation that comes to my mind is how most major gangs have their own exclusive coded language in which they can communicate while police and the average individual are oblivious to and gives gangs an advantage to share their plans.

Part II:
      I thought that this part was going to be easy since I would be able to actually talk, but it couldn't have been harder. yes I was able to talk and express my opinion and yes my friend was able to respond to me normally and was able to understand me enough to have somewhat normal conversation, but I found it hard to fluently talk without changing my tone of voice, making expressions and especially making body movement and found my self stopping mid-sentence and stuttering at times in order to think about what to say next for a second while preventing myself from doing anything but speaking in monotone.
     Overall this assignment made me realize that hand gestures, at least in my case, aid us in talking. Being able to change vocal tone helps show a person's emotion and how they feel about a certain topic or situation. eye contact also helps show that a person acknowledges you and are paying attention to what your saying while hand gestures are able to help convey a point through imagery.
    Being able to read body language allows you to understand a lot about a person. for example when a person is lying, stressed, angry, sad, happy (truly or falsely) their body language reflects that for example when a person lies they make certain gestures unless they are in a state of mind where they believe what their saying is absolute truth then or they are really good at keeping or are able to throw people off by having abnormal yet natural body language they display when they tell the truth as oppose to just a straight face, their body movements consistent between telling the truth or lying. In addition being able to read body language allows one to interpret gestures that people make for things like stop, go, no, yes, etc. and allows for one to communicate silently which may be needed or just convenient in some situation.
   

fooled for 40 years... must have been one heck of a lie.

Piltdown, East Sussex, England 1912 is where Charles Dawson, a British amateur archaeologist, along with Arthur Smith Woodward, England's leading geologist at the time, and French paleontologist, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin excavated an ancient human skull as well as a part of that same skulls jaw which was dubbed Piltdown Man. the significance of Piltdown man is that at the time of its discovery it led to the belief that the human brain developed to large sizes before humans could walk up right and that England's human ancestors may have been the oldest of all ancestors.
     However the hoax was exposed after World War II in 1949 through the use of a Fluorine test which involved measuring the fluorine content within fossils, with bones buried underground build up fluorine and the longer a bone is under ground the more fluorine it builds up, in order to roughly date the fossils. the results revealed that the fossils were no where near 1 million years old. further research ensued which revealed that the jaw was actually the jaw of a female orangutan and that the teeth of the jaw were filed down. this of course sent a shock to scientist since nobody before hand would have thought that a hoax to this degree could happen.
    when coming to human faults chances are the main faults are A. not bringing up many questions about the fossil finding due to the leading geologist in England, giving him high prestige, having identified the findings despite being an expert on fish fossils. and B. national pride because if this hoax wasn't a hoax at all then it would have meant that humans the oldest human ancestors originated from England which beforehand hadn't had much findings on ancient human fossils.
   I don't think that its possible to remove the "human" factor from science because human error leads to revision of our mistakes and scientific theories are never set and stone and are always up to be revised in the event an error is found which in turn allows to gain greater understanding of the world around us. as such I wouldn't want to remove the "human" factor either for that same reason.
   the lesson here is quite obvious, be cautious about taking information at face value. there may be times where things are exactly what they appear to be with no hidden secrets, but there will be times, more often than not, where information that's presented to you may be incorrect or have some type of error or may be the result of invalid information or research or falsified findings and at that point its best to question such information and try to find the truth to it or you could risk believing a lie for half your life.
 

Comparative Primate: Dentition Patterns

1. Lemurs
a. Lemurs and inhabit Madagascar which consist of two completely different climate zones, eastern rain forest and western deserts. They are also arboreal meaning they live in trees and are either found at the rain forest canopy or the forest mid-level. however, ring tailed lemurs also venture to the ground and spends most of their time there.

b. Lemurs have heterodont dentition pattern meaning they have multiple tooth morphological (molars, canines, incisors, etc.) and have a dentition pattern of 2.1.3.3 or a pattern 2 incisors, 1 canine, 3 premolars, and 3 molars. their teeth has a tooth-comb structure.

c. due to living atop trees lemurs diet consist of things like fruits, seeds, plants, and sap. their tooth-comb teeth allows for easier acquisition of such foods as their teeth makes it easier to pluck seeds and cut through bark to attain sap.

d. 

2. Spider Monkeys   
a. Spider monkeys inhabit rain forest from central america to south america. Like Lemurs they are also arboreal and live atop trees.

b. Similar to a lemur spider monkeys's dental formula is 2.1.3.3 so they have a pattern of 2 incisors, 1 canine, 3 premolars, and 3 molars.

c. A spider monkey's teeth aid it in attaining fruit and nuts, which make up most of its diet, by allowing it to pluck fruit from trees and bite and chew harder nuts.

d. 

3. Baboon
a. unlike the lemur and spider monkey baboons are land dwelling and primarily live in open Savannah and woodlands but like the lemur are native to Africa.

b. Baboons possess powerful jaws as well as sharp canines and unlike the lemur and spider monkey have a dentition pattern of 2.1.2.3 or a pattern of 2 incisors, 1 canine, 2 premolars, and 3 molars

c. given that the baboon has a very diverse diet within its habitat ranging from mostly grass, to fruits and nuts, insects and fish (making them omnivores) it can be said that their teeth can be seen as an adaptation as their canines would allow them to tear through fish and insects while its premolars and molars would aid in chewing its foods.

d.       

4. Gibbon
a. unlike the three primates listed above Gibbons are native to Asia, particularly south to southeast Asia. however, like lemurs and spider monkeys they inhabit rain forest both tropical and sub-tropic.

b. Gibbons share an identical dentition pattern to baboons being 2.1.2.3 or a pattern of 2 incisors, 1 canine, 2 premolars, and 3 molars

c. like baboons the gibbons is omnivorous dentition patterns allow it to eat a wide variety of foods such as fruit, seeds, tree bark, insects, spiders, and bird eggs so it can be assumed that their dentition patterns are an adaptation to allow it to consume various foods leading it to be able to adapt and survive if there is a change in its diet like if a food source like insects suddenly went extinct it would be able to live off of the other foods in its diet

d.      
5. Chimpanzee
a. Chimpanzees inhabit rain forests and wet savannah areas within Africa. they mainly feed and sleep atop trees but overall spend about an equal amount of time on ground as they do in trees.

b. Like Baboons and Gibbons, chimpanzees also have a dentition pattern of 2.1.2.3 (2 incisors, 1 canine, 2 premolars, and 3 molars).

c. A chimpanzee's dentition patterns allow it to be able to eat a variety of foods such as fruit, which is the main part of its diet, seeds, berries, and other smaller animals, including other primates making it omnivorous. thus they are able to adapt to a change to its diet due to being able to eat various foods.

d. 

Analogy/Homology Blog Post

1. two species possessing a homologous trait.
              a. Humans and Dolphins
              b. dolphin's pectoral fins have a similar bone structure to the human arm and hand sharing the same bones: Humerus, ulna, radius, carpals, metacarpals, and phalanges. However, the function of the human arm and hand and the dolphin pectoral fin are vastly different with the human arm and hand being used for things like writing, eating, constructing objects, making gestures, self defense, etc. while the dolphin's pectoral fins are used for balance, and help a dolphin steer and stop while swimming.
              c. Humans descend from primates, while dolphins descend from a land mammal due to their need for air and the bone structure of their fins greatly resembling the bone structure of land mammals.
             d.
 


2. Two species with an analogous trait
          a. Platypus and ducks
          b. both species possess bills however while a duck's bill is used for eating and anything relating to eating food like filtering out extra water or inedible things a platypus's bill is used detect smaller prey while it swims under water through electrolocation, which is being able to sense an object through a weak electrical field, in addition to use its bill to eat.
          c. the common ancestors of both species may have possessed similar traits but given how platypus are mammals and ducks are birds they would most likely have had different ancestors thus their traits would still be analogous as a result.
         d. 

Protein Synthesis: Can you decipher my code!?

CTTGTACTGGCCGAACGTCTAAGTAAAATTGTCTATCGTGG

Darwin and Cuvier: Influence from an Anti-evolutionist

        Georges Cuvier, a French naturalist and zoologist studied mammal fossils, specifically mammoth fossils and compared their bone structure to the living species of elephants and declared that both mammals were a separate species with Mammoth's having vanished from existence and that similar fossilized mammals also vanished by means of periodic catastrophe (http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/cuvier.html) which would lead to the idea of extinction.
        Interestingly Cuvier rejected the idea of evolution believing that any change to a species's anatomy would render it incapable to survive. despite that his findings on extinction still supported Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection, particularly "If the environment changes, the traits that are helpful or adaptive to that environment will be different." or natural selection with the periodic catastrophe's serving as the environmental changes and extinction being the result of the species that lacked the traits to adapt to the changing environment while the species with the traits that allow them to adapt to the environmental change moving onward and breeding creating the next generation the possess the adaptive traits for survival.
      I think that Darwin still would have been able to develop his theory of natural selection without the influence of Cuvier since he probably would have come to the same conclusion that species that lack the adaptive traits to survive in a changing environment would end up extinct since there would be no signs of said extinct species over time and fossils would still be present with someone else coming to a similar conclusion as Cuvier.
     I believe that the church's attitude would have had some effect on Darwin's publication of On the Origin of Species only because the theory of natural selection would challenge the church and the belief of divine creation. However such attitude wasn't enough to prevent Darwin from publishing On the Origin of Species.


Source(s)

http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/cuvier.html

Introduction to Physical Anthropology, 2013-2014 Edition, 14th Edition