Human Variation and Race

Krystal Morrice

Anthropology Week 8 Blog Post

Human Variation and Race Blog

March 25^th, 2013

1.      As the article Adapting to Climate Extremes states, “more people die from heat than cold in the United States every year” (http://anthro.palomar.edu/adapt/adapt_2.htm). Heat causes people to sweat and when a person sweats they are looking the water and salt, daily minerals that are needed to stay alive and healthy, that their body has obtained. If this balance of water and sweat is not replaced in their body then the result can be fatality. High body temperatures often cause infections and deterioration of organs which can then lead to death.

2.      There are a few different ways that humans have adapted to living in areas with high heat temperatures.

a.      A short-term adaptation to living in high heat temperatures would be sweating out the heat. Like I talked about in question number one when a person’s body is high in temperature, it usually sweats to get rid of excess heat that the body is carrying.

b.      A facultative adaptation of living in extremely hot climates is, “vasodilation of peripheral blood vessels causes flushing, or reddening, of the skin because more blood is close to the surface.  That blood brings heat from the core body areas to the surface where it can be dissipated easily into the environment by radiation” (http://anthro.palomar.edu/adapt/adapt_2.htm). This is a facultative adaptation because it doesn’t require a change in the DNA, but rather an adjustment while the problem, such as high temperatures, occurs.

c.       According to Bermann’s Rule, people’s and animal’s body type differ depending on the climate that they live in. People who have more body mass and a shorter bigger mass usually live in a climate where it is cold because their bodies are able to produce more heat due to the fact that they have more cells in its body to produce heat. While animals and people that live in warmer climates are usually thinner with longer limbs. People of small body mass are better adapted to radiate heat off of their bodies due to the small body mass, which is why they are more likely to live in hotter regions. This can be thought of as developmental adaptations.

d.      There are many different cultural adaptations to adjusting to hot living climates. For instance, the invention of air conditioning, fans, spray bottles, and other cooling technologies have helped people and animals adapts to severe temperatures. Another thing that I found interesting while reading one of the articles was the invention of sports drinks to re-hydrate people and add the minerals and salt back to your body once you sweat it out. I was watching the history channel a few days ago with my dad, he is a huge history channel fan, and it was a show on the invention of Gatorade. I found it interesting that Gatorade was invented to re-hydrate sports teams, particularly a football team in this case. It was named Gatorade after the Florida Gators football team! That is probably a little bit off topic, but I found it interesting!

3.      Human variation is an interesting topic and I believe that information from different explorations and studies can be deemed extremely useful. Any research helps people understand why our bodies normally react a specific way, or, in the aspect of developmental adaptation, why we have specific genetics that help us live in certain environments. One way that knowing all if this information, if we are talking about the information I provided in question number two, is beneficial is the ideas in cultural adaptation. Knowing things like the fact that sports drinks hydrate you and that they are easy to make like explained in the article. “It is easy and inexpensive to create your own equivalent drink without the unnecessary food coloring and sugar that the commercial drinks often include to make them more appealing to customers.  Diluted lemonade with added salt can satisfactorily serve the same purpose” (http://anthro.palomar.edu/adapt/adapt_2.htm). Can help people know how to take care of themselves while they are living in hot temperature areas.

4.      The color of someone’s skin can have a lot to do with the type of environment they live in. The more often you’re around the sun and ultra violet lights, then the darker your skin probably is. There are benefits and disadvantages of being in the sun light. An advantage is that sun exposure creates healthy vitamins that your skin needs such as Vitamin D. The down-side to too much sun exposure is that it can also lead to diseases such as “rickets disease” or “osteoporosis”. The good thing about the vitamins’ needed to ensure a healthy immune system and skin type is that it is now possible to get these vitamins through ways such as taking oral vitamins or drinking milk!