Human Variation & Race Blog

Cold is an environmental stress that negatively impacts the survival of humans by disturbing homeostasis.  Our normal body temperature is 98.6 degrees when we expose our bodies to the cold our body tries to regulate the temperature and begins triggering our muscles to shiver.  Our muscles shivering allows heat to be generated but at the same time our body starts pumping more blood to our organs to counteract the cold temperature.  Our extremities like fingers lack blood and become ice cold. If this happens for too long cells start dying and in a worst case scenario that part of the body is lost to frost bite. 

Short-term:  When are muscles start shivering is a short term response to our bodies being cold and by shivering the constant muscle constrictions create more energy which turns into heat.

Facultative Adaptation:  A Facultative Adaptation Response we use in response to cold is vaso-constriction.  In Vasoconstriction the diameter of the capillaries is reduced and blood flow is constricted.  It allows our bodies to stay warmer and fight the cold.

Developmental Adaptation:  A developmental adaptation response to cold is seen in our body shape and size.  People in cold environments have round bodies and the fat is usually in areas where vital organs are kept safe from the cold. 

Cultural Adaptation:  A Cultural Adaptation response is clothing.  In colder cultures they tend to use thicker clothing for example fur jackets and headwear are used to protect our bodies from the cold.  Another example is pressurizing airplane cabins with oxygen because not only the height but cold temperature would interfere with our breathing. 

Benefits in Studying Human Variation:  Examining different cultures and body types and how they adapt to the cold will help facilitate scientist in the understanding of when certain events are triggered such as shivering and vasoconstriction.  And to explore the different temperatures in different body sizes that trigger such events. The main benefit lies in science because the exploration of human variation can lead to a more thorough knowledge in our bodies.

I believe race isn’t a good way to describe human variation.  Environmental influences to adaptation is a better way because it should be based off individuals not races.  For example dark skin has to do with sun adaption rather than race.

The Piltdown Man HOAX!

1.

The Piltdown Hoax was an event that brought the scientific world and the public in uproar when they discovered that they were fooled for over forty years.  They were led to believe there some of the most ancient Englishman remains had been found at Piltdown.  Piltdown was an Archeological site in England and it so happened to be that an amateur yet very ambitious archeologist named Charles Dawson found what appeared to be an apes jaw but what was significant was that the teeth pattern appeared to be human.  Dawson then invited Smith Wood-worth who at the time was a leading archeologist and Arthur Keith to the site of the discovery and together the trio made astonishing finds.  The trio announced the discovery to the public in Dec 1912.  England was no longer left behind since they too had discovered ancient human remains…but not just that they found remains that might hold the link that scientist had been looking for the link of humans and apes.

 In the 1920s more ancient remains were discovered all over the world but they seemed to be older than the Piltdown man yet they were the complete opposite.  Their skulls were found to be less human not more human.  Om 1949 Fluorine test proved that the remains dated to hundreds of thousand years old but not million as many had thought.  By 1953 a full analysis was done on the remains.  The techniques had increased and they had better dating methods.  It was then that the staining was shown to be artificial and that material was cut off after it was fossilized.  The jaw belonged to a female orangutan less than a hundred years old.  After they put the teeth under a microscope they could clearly see the teeth were filed down.  Charles Dawson immediately became the prime suspect because he was the one that first did the discovery and everyone knew he was ambitious and wanted to be a part of the prestige scientific world.

 In the end half of all his findings were found to be forged.  Wood-worth was questionable because he already was a lead archeologist and even after Dawson died poor man kept on digging at the same site.  Arthur Keith is also a suspect because in him supporting and being a part of this hoax only helped him prove his pet theory of evolution.  In 1975 they added another suspect:  Martin Hinton who at the time was a volunteer at the museum.  They found a trunk filled with forged artifacts very similar to the ones of the Piltdown man.  But they don’t have actual evidence that he was in fact a part of this hoax.

2.
The human faults that came to play in the Piltdown man hoax were ambition, rivalry, jealousy and pride.  Being competitive is human nature I believe no matter what we always want to be better than our competition.  At the time Germany had made an “ape man discover,” England hadn’t discovered any ancient remains so maybe even though many questioned the findings no one spoke up about it because to the rest of the world England had found to that point the oldest remains.  Dawson was also just a beginner but very ambitious and full of pride.  He didn’t just want to climb up the ladder he wanted to leap to the finish line and this hoax was his one way ticket to success. 

3.            The aspects responsible for revealing the truth and that defrauded this hoax was the chemical test by a Paleontologist named Oakley that was able to date fossils.  This was in 1943 when Oakley invented fluorine testing to date fossils.  The testing was simple fossils absorb fluorine from soil and water so fossils that have been in the same soil for the same length in time should have same amount of fluorine.  The test proved to date the fossils back to hundreds of thousand years old not a million.  Later in 1967 Oakley and another scientist took the same fluorine test but enhanced or bettered and also discovered that the teeth were not the same age as the skull.  And that is when they noticed the staining of the bones to make them appear ancient

4.  
 Human factor is what makes us humans who we are no matter what field we choose to be in.  As a scientist many discoveries and inventions have been made simply because they were curious.  Curiosity is a big human factor.  Because scientist in the past have been curious and gone past the curiosity to observe and challenged themselves to find and prove their theories that is why we know what we know now.  Without human factors we would all be very boring people sitting around not really caring what if…  We shouldn’t be biased when it comes to science and we should keep things like rivalry and child play out but curious we should always be.  So to remove human factor to reduce errors could possibly reduce errors but there are no errors to be made if no one was curious enough to investigate that certain matter or subject.

5. 
 There is no way that our society now would be fooled by such a thing.  Now a days even if something is sitting in front of me I question the ins and outs of it.  Even now the government and doctors say one thing and I choose to believe my own research and findings. Even though I even question that because in the end my research includes a lot of the internet.  Even though they are verifiable sources who says they are verifiable?  How do I know they truly are?  To me even verified sources are always to a degree unrealistic or unverified.  Seems that now a days a scientist or doctor says one thing and everyone is gun-ho about it for a couple of years and boom ends up being doctor so and so was connected to so and so so of course the rest of the scientific world backed him up.  And how could you go against the government? If they say its true its true right? What to believe or who to believe is a big mystery in my point of view.  Everything and everyone is influenced bye something or someone for example the media...that is a whole other subject though..

Comparing Dentition Patterns of Primates GC

Lemurs (Prosimians/Strepsirhini) 
a. A thorough description of the environment in which the primates lives.
Lemurs spend most of their time at the top of the rain forest canopy usually in Europe, Asia and Africa.  They are native to Madagascar.
b. A description of your specified character trait for that primate.  The lemur dental pattern is 2.1.3.3 Their dentition is heterodent which means they have multiple tooth morphologies.  .  They have a total of 36 teeth, 2-insicors, 1-canine, 3-premolars, and 3-molars. The lemurs dentition is quite unique because they have a dental comb which they use for grooming and feeding.
c. A discussion on how the primate’s trait expression has been influenced by its environment, i.e., how can the trait be viewed as an adaptation to the primate’s environment.
The way this trait showed its adaption to their environment is that they needed to adapt to the type of food they had available to them.  By using their incisors and canines to create the dental comb they are able to eat the fruit and buds.
d. An image of that primate, preferably displaying the trait you are studying, if possible.

Spider Monkey (New World Monkey/Platyrrhini) 
a. A thorough description of the environment in which the primates lives.
Spider monkeys live in south and Central America and are arboreal just like the lemurs.
b. A description of your specified character trait for that primate.
Spider monkey’s have a similar dental pattern to the lemur, 2.1.3.3. They also have 36 teeth, 2-incisors, 1-canine, 3-premolars, and 3-molars
c. A discussion on how the primate’s trait expression has been influenced by its environment, i.e., how
can the trait be viewed as an adaptation to the primate’s environment.
Spider monkey’s use their teeth for biting and chewing and have used this to adapt to their environment in order to get the most out of the available food in their environment.  They use their incisors to pick fruits off of trees.

Baboon (Old World Monkey/Cercopithecidae) 
a. A thorough description of the environment in which the primates lives.
Baboons live live in deserts in the Africa and southern Asia to northern Japan.
b. A description of your specified character trait for that primate.
Baboons have a slightly different dental pattern than the lemur and spider monkey, 2.1.3.3.  They also have a total of 32 teeth but have 2-incisors, 1-canine, 2-premolars, and 3-molars. Dentition pattern similar to chimpanzees.
c. A discussion on how the primate’s trait expression has been influenced by its environment, i.e., how
can the trait be viewed as an adaptation to the primate’s environment.
The baboons use their incisors to eat fruit and their molars to eat things like worms and snails..  They do have big canine teeth are not used to eat with but to fight off predators.  They are able to adapt to their environment by showing or inflicting pain to other animals that threaten them by showing their canines.

Gibbon (Lesser ape/Hylobatidae) 
a. A thorough description of the environment in which the primates lives.
Gibbons live in the trees of the forests of Southeast Asia.
b. A description of your specified character trait for that primate.
. Gibbons have a dental pattern of 2.1.2.3.  They have a total of 32 teeth, 2-incisors, 1-canine, 2-premolars, and 3-molars
c. A discussion on how the primate’s trait expression has been influenced by its environment, i.e., how
can the trait be viewed as an adaptation to the primate’s environment.
Gibbons use their canines, premolars, and molars to eat fruit. Gibbons also have long canines like the Baboon, which are also used for defense because neither the baboon nor the gibbons eat meat.  This is an example of their adaption to their environment because they use their teeth as a defense in the environment they live in. I am sure they would have found another way to adapt if they had not had these massive canines but luckily they do and were able to survive and adapt to their environment.

Chimpanzee (Great ape/Hominidae)  
a. A thorough description of the environment in which the primates lives.
Chimpanzees live primarily in Africa.  They roam around land as well as in trees mainly in rainforest but also in Savanaahs.
b. A description of your specified character trait for that primate.
The chimpanzee has a dental pattern 2.1.2.3.  They have a total of 32 teeth, 2-incisors, 1-canine, 2-premolars, and 3-molars.  Dentition pattern can be compared to the Gibbon.
c. A discussion on how the primate’s trait expression has been influenced by its environment, i.e., how
can the trait be viewed as an adaptation to the primate’s environment.
Chimpanzees use their teeth for eating and defense just like baboons. They use their canines just like baboons for self defense. The remainder of their teeth are used to bit and chew the things they hunt and like birds.  I believe this helped them to adapt to their environment much like the other primates. Similar to the other primates they have adapted to their environment because of their teeth.  They are able to eat as well as provide themselves with a defense system.

In summarizing all of the primate’s dentition patterns I noticed that they are similar.  The differences are that the use for their teeth in each primate can be different.  Baboons and Chimpanzees use their canines for protection and to scare off whatever is threatening them.  Lemurs and Spider Monkeys use theirs mainly for plants and fruit.  These primates have easily adapted into their environments because their teeth has assisted in the adaptation.  We can break these five primates into two groups one group having the Lemur and Spider monkey with similar dental patterns they live in similar environments and eat similar things.  The Baboons, Chimpanzees and Gibbons as you can see also live in similar environments and use their canines as a form of protection.

Analogy and Homology Blog Post

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Protein Synthesis Blog

Here is my strand:
ATTGTACCAAGATCGCACGGGCAGCCCCAAATTGATCGCCG

Alfred Wallace & Charles Darwin

1.       Alfred Russell Wallace is one of the individuals who had a lot of influence in Darwin’s development of his theory of Natural Selection.  Professor Rodriguez actually pointed out that he influenced it in two ways: “He provided further evidence supporting their theory AND Wallace provided the impetus Darwin needed to finally publish his work or lose the credit to Wallace entirely.”

2.       Alfred Russell Wallace developed a theory of natural selection and alongside Darwin published it in a scientific paper in 1958.  The following year Darwin published a book that further promoted his theory which grasped the community’s attention.  The link to my source is http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-21549079.  Over the years the name Wallace became more and more ghostly and Darwin became a famous household name even though they both contributed equally and at the same time.

3.       Charles Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace had almost similar theories in regards to evolution so all the points that led to this theory are in fact the same in both cases.“If the Environment changes, the traits that are helpful or adaptive to that environment will be different.  Darwin argued that when the environment changed individuals would compete amongst the community rather than what Wallace said.  Both did focus that once individuals settled into their new environments they would eventually adapt to their surroundings.

4.       Yes Darwin had already done enough of his own research the supported his theory the problem was that he had not made anything public.  And it wasn’t until he got a letter from Wallace that he stepped up and move forth to publishing his book.  It could have been questioned more in the scientific community but it wasn’t because the research Wallace had also supported Darwin’s theory.

5.       When Darwin published The Origin of Species it became a big controversy in the church because religious views were being mixed up.  The attitude the church had was immediately to reject the book.  Religious leaders felt that the theory directly denied and contradicted teachings of the Christian faith. In an article I read it says that Darwin’s ideas “provoked a harsh and immediate response from religious leaders in Britain.”  One high ranking official called his theory brutal philosophy.  But in the end the same church that challenged his theory at the beginning gave him a full state funeral and burial.

 http://www.pewforum.org/2009/02/04/darwin-and-his-theory-of-evolution/