Human Variation & Race

1. The environmental stress that has been put upon humans is bearing through the cold. The cold weather can be life threatening and can be harmful. The cold weather can be adapted to, or can cause serious problems, such as hypothermia. Hypothermia is a condition in which core temperature drops below the required body temperature. You can catch hypothermia from cold water, alcohol, and low temperatures, which can lead to death. Other symptoms can occur, such as, fat insulation, and blood flow patterns.

2.

• Shivering is a short term, because the muscles shake and warm your body up. 

• Having red cheeks and nose is a facultative adaptation, because the skin temperature falls below below 10°C.

• Developmental adaptation would having a larger body mass. People with bigger body mass would stay warmer, I noticed it with my friends and I. One of my friends is really thick and another one is really small; the friend that is small is always cold, even during spring and summer, but the one that is thick, is always hot, she turns on the ac in the middle of winter.

 

• Clothing is a cultural adaptation because, the warmer the clothes are the warmer you stay. Specially the have certain types of clothes for the cold, such as, pea-coats, scarfs, gloves, and much more. 

 3. The benefit of studying human variation through environmental clines because we can see how people adapt to certain things, and it uncovers different forms of natural selection. This information can be useful, only to understand why people do certain things and act a certain way.

4. If we were to use race to understand the variations on adaptions, it would be to show how different each race is, and not every one race is the same. It can also show us how they adapted to their environment. I believe that environmental influences is a better way to understand human variation because each race is different, and that more then one race live together. So if different races live together, that means they are adapting to the environment and not who they are. Race does play a part on how we adapt, but it doesn't play a big part. 

Language Experiment: Symbolic vs. Speaking Language

Part 1:

1. Did you find this experiment difficult or easy? Explain

• I found this experiment difficult for me and easy for her. It was difficult for me because I wanted to talk and explain myself to her, but i couldn't.  I found it easy because the person I was interacting with knows my personality and what I mean. It was easy for her because she knows my personality and knows what I would say just by my hand movements.

2.  What were the impressions of partners in the conversation? Did they alter their way of communicating with you because of your absence of symbolic communication? Describe.

• Her impression was like"this is what you have to do?" No my partner didn't alter her voice when I was interacting with her. The only thing she tried to do was understand what I was trying to express through her with my hands. 

3. Imagine that you and your partners in the conversation represent two different cultures meeting for the first time. Which culture has the advantage in communicating complex ideas? What attitudes might the speaking culture have toward the culture that does not use symbolic language? Identify individuals in our culture that have difficulty communicating with spoken language and explore how that affects how those who do speak interact with those individuals.

• I believe the one that can use language can communicate complex ideas. The attitude towards symbolic language would be awkward, and be like what are you trying to say. In our culture, the people who are deaf  have a hard time interacting with others. This would affect them, and would make them feel isolated from the rest of the world.

Part 2:

1. Were you able to last for the full 15 minutes of using only speech for communicating? What made this experiment difficult for you?

• No, me and my partner couldn't last the full 15 minutes. This experiment was difficult for me because, I am not used to not having emotions in my tone of voice. Also, in my culture we use our hands and eyebrows to point something out, and to express a situation even more. 

2. How were your partners in this part of the experiment affected by your communication limitations? Explain.

• My partner thought I had no emotions at all. Also, when my partner found out about the second part of the experiment, she understood why I was acting like that. My partner told me, it was hard for her to take me seriously, and to tell if I was joking or not.  

3. What does this experiment say about our use of “signs” in our language, i.e., how important is non-speech language techniques in our ability to communicate effectively?

• This experiment showed me that the "signs" in our language is important. If we do not use them, it would take away from the emotion of our tone of voice. I believe it would make the interaction with others feel a little awkward and the others would feel like we have no emotions.

4. Are there people who have difficulty reading body language? Describe the adaptive benefit to possessing the ability to read body language. Can you describe environmental conditions where there might be a benefit to not reading body language?

• Yes, there are people who have difficulty reading body language. For once,  I am one of those people to a certain limit. There are some body language where I cannot understand and read it. The adaptive benefit of possessing the ability to read body language; for example, if you are with a group of  friends and want to talk with someone you can, either move your eyes and direct them to somewhere to get them by themselves. No i cannot describe a benefit to not reading body language. 

Piltdown Hoax

The story of the Piltdown hoax began in the early 1900's, in Sussex a county near southeast England. In 1908, amateur archaeologists Charles Dawson, wanting to join the Geological Society of London; in which he claimed that he received from a laborer, a strange piece of skull fossil, which was dug up at the Barkham Manor near the village of Piltdown. Dawson met up with Sir Arthur Smith Woodard; who is a geologist. The British scientist were "swelled with pride", but some scientist doubted that the jawbone and the skull were from the same creature. In 1953, an announcement was made that the Piltdown Man was a fake. When Piltdown was first revealed as a "fake" people felt embarrassed of the British science. Kenneth Oakley did a chemical test to help date the fossils; the results of the test came out to say that Piltdown Man seemed much younger then what was said to be. The Piltdown's jaw was from an Orangutan, and the teeth had been filed down flat. All the fossils have been boiled and stained carefully to give them old age.  The skull was stained, the teeth filed down.

The human fault that first influenced these findings was to find the earliest and first Englishmen. The British science community, wanted to have pride and to be the center of attention, on finding the 'missing link' on British land. People were convinced that the Piltdown Man was the first human like, but without the technology, scientists couldn't really do tests and other stuff to find out how old the fossils are; a majority of the scientific community remained unconvinced. 

The positive aspects of the scientific process that was responsible for revealing the skull to be a hoax was a chemical test, that was done by Kenneth Oakley. By doing chemical tests on the fossils you can date them back to when the originally occurred. 

I do no think you can remove the human factor from science to reduce the chance of errors. I do not think it is possible because humans change, get better educated and we can propose new theories. This means humans are evolving and are learner newer and helpful ways of learning about fossils, and other stuff. 

The life lesson I'm taking from this historical event is not to trust everyone and everything you hear or see. Not everything you hear or see may be true. It can be a fake, a phony, or a lie. 

Comparative Primate

1. Compare the expression of one particular type of trait across five categories of primates, specifically 
comparing a designated representative of each category.  The chosen primates for this assignment are as 
follows (with their grouping in parentheses):

1. Lemurs (Prosimians/Strepsirhini)
2. Spider Monkey (New World Monkey/Platyrrhini)
3. Baboon (Old World Monkey/Cercopithecidae)
4. Gibbon (Lesser ape/Hylobatidae)
5. Chimpanzee (Great ape/Hominidae)

2. The traits you will be comparing across these five primates will be distributed alphabetically across the class.  

Only compare this one assigned trait!  Check the list below and locate the trait you will be analyzing for your 

blog post by finding the topic next to the letter grouping that matches the first letter in your last name:

• IJKLM: Dentition patterns

3. For each of the five primates you will provide three sets of information:


Lemurs

• a. A thorough description of the environment in which the primates lives.
• They are native to the Madagascar. Most Lemurs are arboreal, living in trees; they spend most of their time at the top of the rain forest canopy or in the forest mid level.
• b. A description of your specified character trait for that primate. 
• Their dentition is heterodent, which is having multiple tooth morphologies. Their dental formula is . Their dentition pattern is 2 incisors, 1 canine, 3 premolars, and 3 premolars. 
• 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.
• Prosimians have a tooth-comb; which is six of their teeth that are closely pushed together. Leaf eating Lemurs have a little tooth-comb. The fruit eating Lemurs use their tooth-comb to pick out seeds from the fruit.

Spider Monkeys

• a. A thorough description of the environment in which the primates lives
• Spider Monkeys are form the South America and Central America; like Lemurs, Spider Monkeys are also arboreal. They spend most of their time in the upper canopy of the rain forest.
• b. A description of your specified character trait for that primate. 
• The Spider Monkeys dental formula is . Their dentition pattern is 2 incisors, 1 canine, 3 premolars, and 3 premolars. 
• 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 Monkeys are fruit eaters; they use their incisors to pick fruits off of the trees.

Baboons

• a. A thorough description of the environment in which the primates lives
• Baboons are found in Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen.The have shown us that they can survive almost everywhere, such as the savanna and other semi-arid habitats, and tropical forests.
• b. A description of your specified character trait for that primate. 
• Baboons dental formula is . They have 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.
• Baboons eat grass, leaves, and sometimes eat fish, and other small animal. The trait can be viewed as an adaption because it allows the dentition to be omnivorous.

Gibbons

• a. A thorough description of the environment in which the primates live.
• Gibbons are found in southeast Asia, and parts of southern China. They live in a tropical and subtropical rain forests.
• b. A description of your specified character trait for that primate. 
• Their dental formula is ; they have 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, mostly eat fruit, which is every where in their environment. You can believe that their teeth have adapted to their environment in order to eat their food.

Chimpanzee

• a. A thorough description of the environment in which the primates lives.
• Chimpanzee's can be found in Africa; they live in rain forests and savanna's 
• b. A description of your specified character trait for that primate. 
•  Their dental formula is the same as Gibbons, and Baboons, which is . They have 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. 
• The Chimpanzee's diet is a very wide variety of food, which is from plants and small animals. This means that their teeth has adapted to the need of eating basically everything.

4. Summarize your findings, evaluating the level of influence the environment has on the expression of physical 

and behavioral traits.

• Studying these primates dentition patterns, we can conclude that the environment and the type of food make an impact on the primates dental structure. As you can see, Spider Monkeys and Lemurs have the same dental formula 2133, which means they are new world monkeys. They live in a similar environment and eat similar foods. The last three, which are, Baboons, Gibbons, and Chimpanzee have the same dental formula (2123); this makes them old world monkeys. The three primates share a similar environment and food. This makes the environment and the food type important to the dental structure.

Homology & Analogy

1. For your homologous traits provide the following information:

• a.  Briefly describe the two different species that possess the homologous trait.  
• The two species that represent a homologous trait are bears and dogs. They both have a humerus.

• b. Describe the homologous trait of each species, focusing on the differences in structure and function of the trait. Why do these homologous traits exhibit differences between the two species? Make sure your explanation is clear and complete.
• The homologous trait of each species is the humerus. The humerus is the upper foreleg of  a dog. The humerus is attached to the shoulder. They both have one because they share a common ancestor.

•  c. Who was (generally, not specifically) the common ancestor of these two species and how do you know that ancestor possessed this homologous trait?
• The general ancestor of these two species is the carnivore.  You can tell because a carnivore is mammal and that most mammals have a humerus. 

• d. Provide an image of each species in this comparison.

1. For your analogous traits provide the following information:

• a. Briefly describe the two different species that possess the analogous trait.
• The species that possess the analogous trait is humans and snakes. They both have a femur, but used for different things.

•  b. Describe the analogous trait of each species, focusing on the similarities in structure and function of the trait. Clearly explain why these analogous traits exhibit similarities between the two species.
• The analogous trait is that humans are mammals and snakes are reptiles, but they still have a femur.  The humans femur is attached to the pelvic girdle, and as for the snakes, it is part of the pelvic limb. The snakes femur is useless and just floats. Unlike the snakes, the human femur is used for walking and jumping.

• c.All pairs of organisms share some common ancestor if you go back far enough in time. Did the common ancestor of these two species possess this analogous trait? Why or why not?
• Yes, the common ancestor did possess this analogous trait. It did have a femur. Maybe before snakes could have walked, but changed over time to fit in their environment.

• d. Provide an image of each species in this comparison.

Protein Synthesis:

Sentence Strand: AUGUGGAUUUCAGUUCUCUCCGAUGGGUAG


Have fun, & Good luck! :)

Natural Selections

1. Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829) 

2. Lamarck was one of the first person in his time to explain the evolution process. He believed that a change in the environment would cause a change in the need of organisms living in that environment. In that case it would change in the their behavior. Also, Lamarck stated that all things are heritable. This theory of Lamarck was about, if the environment changed the organisms would adapt to the environment. 
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/lamarck.html

3. The theory from Lamarck was how the organisms would adapt to the environment and change according to that. Unlike Darwin, he explained it as; that the strongest organism can find resources to adapt to the environment. At the end both of them did get the same conclusion.

4. No, Darwin could not have developed his theories without the influence of Lamarck. He couldn't have because Lamarck was the first person to develop a theory about evolution. Also, Darwin's theory of natural selection depends on that evolution does occur and doesn't stop.

5. The church didn't accept his ideas, or the book Origin of Species but they did accept the book as a scholastic one.