Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Human Variation & Race Blog

1. Select only ONE of the following environmental stresses: (a) heat, (b) high levels of solar radiation, (c) cold, or (d) high altitude. Discuss specifically how this environmental stress negatively impacts the survival of humans by disturbing homeostasis. (5 pts)

The environmental stress i'd like to discuss is high altitude. It negatively impacts the survival of humans because it can be extremely hot during the day with extreme colds at night. Also, winds are very strong and humidity is very low so it increases the chances of rapid dehydration. The most dramatic disturbance would be the fact that air pressure is low, meaning there is less oxygen in the air making it hard for people to breath properly. This is called hypoxia, or oxygen deprivation. It causes lack of appetite, vomiting, headache, distorted vision, fatigue, along with memorizing and thinking clearly. In very sever cases individuals begin to have pneumonia like symptoms due to hemorrhaging in the lungs.

2. Identify 4 ways in which humans have adapted to this stress, choosing one specific adaptation from each of the different types of adaptations listed above (short term, facultative, developmental and cultural). Include images of the adaptations. (5 pts each/ 20 pts total)

Humans have facultative adapted to the stress of high altitude by increasing the oxygen carrying blood cells. Another adaption would be the over production of hemoglobin in the blood. Also, people increase their lung expansion capability. Increasing breathing rate helps with these adaptions, meaning taking in more frequent breathes. This allows broader capillaries and arteries that in return give a larger amount of oxygen to the muscles. The EPAS1 gene is particularly important in adapting to environments with consistently low oxygen pressure. In higher levels of altitude climbers must use oxygen masks in order to maintain functional breathing.


3. What are the benefits of studying human variation from this perspective across environmental clines? Can information from explorations like this be useful to help us in any way? Offer one example of how this information can be used in a productive way. (5 pts)

The benefits from studying human variation across this environmental cline shows how people have adapted differently due to different environmental changes. It shows that not only in the past did the hominids adapt to their environment but so have modern humans adapted over time to their surroundings. I think this information can be very beneficial to us because it allows us to find the genetic and non genetic coding that allows us to adapt to the way we live and the environment around us. It enables us to look into all of the forms that our bodies are being pushed to make changes that will benefit our survival. For example this information about high altitudes effecting lung capacity enables boxers to train at a higher state. Their lungs are being forced to work overtime to supply their bodies with as much oxygen as they need. When the boxers come down to the normal altitude level their lungs have acclimatized to the higher level so they have more room to expand and give a boxer a higher endurance during a fight.

4. How would you use race to understand the variation of the adaptations you listed in #2? Explain why the study of environmental influences on adaptations is a better way to understand human variation than by the use of race. (10 pts)

Race would be used to understand the variation of the adaptions because Tibetan and Nepalese people have become adapted to their altitudes after thousands of years of living in the areas. They have acquired genes to fix the problems, that other individuals who are used to lower level altitudes such as "high altitude sickness" attain. The study of environmental influences on adaption are a better way to understand human variation because the environment effects individuals differently. The race has adapted over a long period of time where as in a shorter period of time an individual can adapt to the higher altitude by taking small steps, or even using an oxygen mask in order to help them breath better. Plus, the environment is always changing and so is the modern human. Our bodies are able to adapt if put under a large amount of stress at a time and even short amounts of stress. Race is not a factor with how human bodies adapt to their surroundings.

Monday, March 18, 2013

Language Experiment & Post.

Part 1:
I found this experiment to be difficult because I wasn't sure how to express myself and have a conversation with my husband. Not being able to talk or use my hands was difficult. But when I talk I use facial expressions a lot, so not being able to talk I just emphasized my facial expressions hoping that my husband would understand what I felt about what he was telling me.

No, my husband did not alter the way he conversed with me just because I couldn't talk back. I found it funny that I couldn't talk because I am so talkative. So I would laugh. My husband would find it frustrating that I couldn't communicate back to him. When I would laugh he found it even more difficult to communicate with me because he didn't know why I was laughing and felt that I was laughing at him. So I would have to shake my head no that I wasn't laughing at me. The 15 minutes went by fast because he was trying to guess what I was saying with my facial expressions after he would talk to me.

If two different cultures where meeting for the first time, I think the culture that is able to talk, communicate, and understand the other party is at the advantage. The other side that is not able to communicate back is at the disadvantage. The speaking party might see the the nonspeaking party as not competent or even inferior. Individuals in our culture that have difficulty communicating our spoken language are immigrants that move here from their countries. Individuals who interact with these immigrants often are rude and don't have any patients towards them. But there are also individuals who are accommodating but these people speak the immigrants language. But that's still not always the case.

Part 2:
No, I was not able to last the full 15 minutes with just talking and no other form of communication. It was difficult for me because I do use a lot of facial expressions. Not being able to really fully express how I feel when talking to my best friend was really hard. She wasn't able to understand how I fully felt about things, because I was talking neutral with out any facial expressions or hand motions.

She wasn't able to read my body language because I couldn't interact with her to the full extent of which I usually would. She kept asking me more and more questions to try to understand more about what we where talking about and to understand how I felt. I finally got frustrated and started using facial expressions. Which didn't allow me to complete the full 15 minutes.

Our ability to effectively communicate relies heavily on body language, communication, and being able to fully listen and respond to the person or group of people you're trying to talk to. People not only are listening to a person talk but they are watching their expressions and body to see how an individual is feeling at the same time. It's very important for people to be able to understand the unspoken language, as well as the spoken language because individuals will cross boundaries unknowingly or even offend others if they cannot read their body language.

There are people that have a disorders, and disabilities in reading body language such as asperger syndrome, and even individuals with ADHD have difficulty reading body language. These people are at great disadvantage and often have a very hard time interacting socially in public areas. It's a great ability to be able to read body language because in a serious situation when an individual cannot talk body language would be key. Body language could be the only way to communicate to others at times. I don't think that any situation were not being able to read body language can be beneficial. In my opinion body language is just as important as spoken language. In any situation I think being able to understand both spoken and unspoken language is really important just because they do go hand in hand and that's how people express themselves.

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Piltdown Hoax

1. The Piltdown hoax happened in the early 1912's, in the southern English town of Piltdown. Charles Dawson, an amateur archaeologist found what he thought was the fossil of an ancient human skull. He than asked a leading geologist, Aurthor Smith Woodword from the Natural History Museum, to help him excavate the area for more fossils. Dawson also asked a french paleontologist, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Although Dawson was the primary excavator, finding the skull fragment, and the jaw bone piece. His fellow scientist did help him to uncover more pieces of the skull. This finding had a huge impact on the scientific community because they where able find the connection between apes and humans. This also put England on the map. It showed that England like other countries had fossils of ancient primates but also one of the oldest to date. Woodword's statues allowed the finding to go undoubted by the scientific community. In the 1920's, fossils where being found in Asia and Africa that contradicted the Piltdown evidence that the large brain came before the upright walking. The fossils that where excavated in these two countries gave way to evidence that the skulls of ancient people where less human. These fossils did not coincide with the findings of Piltdown. In 1949 scientist measured the fluorine in the Piltdown skull to find that it was roughly 100,000 years old. In 1953 with better methods of dating, scientists relieved that the fossils where cut, stained and filed to fit the particular fossil outline. It was clear to see that the fossils where not real and had been forged. Scientists where stunned, and Dawson was the main suspect that was looked at to be the culprit of the fake fossils and Woodword had been fooled all along.

2. The human faults that come in to play in this scenario seem to be that these scientists are so eager to find fossils that show the rest of the world that England has remains from millions of years ago, that they do not even try to go forth with the scientific process to see if the remains are real or fabricated. It seems that ego gets in the way of falsification. People where so emotionally tied to the fact that the remains where in England that they did not see that it could possibly be staged. These human faults gravely effect the scientific process because if Aurthor Woodword had not been on the work site, than most likely other scientists would have tried to petition the realness of these fossils. They would have been more reluctant to accept these findings to be true. But since he was prominent and well known than people accepted his work without fact which compromises the scientific process.

3. The positive aspects in the scientific process that where responsible for revealing the skull to be fake was the fact that scientists repeatedly went back to the fossils to make sure that they where accurate. Scientists used the fluorine measurements to measure how far back the fossils dated to. This showed that the fossils where actually not as old as everyone has believed them to be. When further tests where being made it was clear to scientists that the fossils had been stained to look aged. Fossils had been cut to look a certain way with a knife. When looking at the jaw bone and teeth under a microscope they found that the teeth had been filed down and they could see scratch marks from the filing to prove it. Also, the jaw bone dated back from less than 100 years that came from a female orangutan. Pieces had also been removed or broken off so that the form of the jaw bone would not give way to the fact that it did not belong to the skull and in fact was to the orangutan. The scientific process of checking and rechecking work to make sure it is accurate comes into play in this scenario.

4.I don't believe there is a way to take the "human" factor out of science to take the chance of errors like this happening. Because being human allows us to have trial and error, and in this trial and error we find what is truth. If humans did not have this process than we would not know fact from fiction. The scientific process is a process of steps that asks questions and hypothesis and that is part of being human. We need to ask questions to learn and understand. The scientific process than allows a human to test these questions and see if they are to be true (fact), or not (false). Making mistakes is how humans correct the process, learn to make clearer judgments, and make sure it does not happen again. I wouldn't want to remove the "human" aspect from science because I feel that "humans" are the ones that have created science. We are the only ones that can come up with new ideas, ask new questions and make new hypothesis. If humans where to be replaced with a computer I don't believe that we as a species would be able to grow and learn from our mistakes and misjudgments.

5. I can take the life lesson from this historical event by realizing not everything you hear is true, and not everything someone says is true. I, myself, need to take the proper steps in making the decision that something is true or false. I can't believe everything just because some one tells me its true. I need to do research and find the facts in order to believe it to be so. I think doing research is a very important aspect of verifying sources. If research isn't made than how will I know if some thing has been proven to be true or false, already in the past. Also research allows me to make my own judgement if the conclusion hasn't been made already.

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Comparative Primate: Locomotor Patterns

Lemurs (Prosimians/Strepsirhini)
a. Lemurs are located in Madagascar and the island of Comoro. These islands contain grassy plains, dense forests, and hill terrain that slopes down to swamps and channels. Lemurs live in the dense forests, that are dry and humid. Also central highlands that are grassy, along with woodlands and thicket.
b. The character trait that lemurs possess are that of their hands and feet. Their hands and feet have five divergent digits with nails which is a prime trait that primates possess. On their second toe, they have an elongated nail called the toilet claw, which is used for grooming and scratching. Their hands are used primarily for climbing and picking fruits and leaves for food. But they only have pseudo-opposable thumbs which doesn't allow their thumb movement to be fully independent of their other fingers. Because their thumbs are pseudo-opposable it makes their hands more difficult in manipulating objects. Lemur feet have a wide set big toe which enables them to grasp trees when climbing.
c. Lemurs hands and feet have been influenced by their environment because they need to have large palms for grasping and thumbs for holding on to trees. Their hands and feet are an adaption to their environment by the fact that their fingers are not fully opposable because they don't need to manipulate their foods or objects to help them obtain food. Lemurs get food by picking and pulling them off of trees.
d.
Spider Monkey (New World Monkey/Platyrrhini)
a. Spider Money's live in the Central and South Americas. They live in tropical, evergreen forests. Spider monkeys live in upper canopy tree tops. They almost never come down to the floor level.
b. Spider Monkeys do not possess thumbs. Their hands are long, narrow and almost hook-like. Their fingers are elongated and recurved with reduced thumbs. Their hands allow them to swing from tree tops and they have long limbs to grasp branches.
c. Spider Monkeys reduced thumbs are an adaption to their arboreal environment. They didn't use their thumbs in the high tree tops so they evolved into smaller fingers in order to a.
d.
Baboon (Old World Monkey/Cercopithecidae)
a. Baboons live in either tall trees or on cliff faces. Their habitat varies based upon water source and safe areas to sleep. They live primarily in Africa and also Arabia. Baboons live in the woodlands and savannas.
b. Baboon's hands are human like and are capable of grasping and manipulating objects. They use their thumbs and forefingers to manipulate their foods such as nuts, fruit, and flowers. They also eat meats at times and shellfish.
c. Baboon's hands have been influenced by their habitat by their knuckles and hands are used to prop themselves up when walking on the ground. This is also an adaption because baboons need their opposable fingers to eat and forage.
d.
Gibbon (Lesser ape/Hylobatidae)
a. Gibbons live in rain forests of Southeast Asia and Indonesia. They are also found in the forests of the highlands of China. They are rarely found on the ground floor and when they are they are erect and upright. In trees they swing long ranges.
b. Gibbons have hands much similar to humans with long fingers and a smaller opposable thumb. Their feet are the same with four toes and an opposable big toe. When swinging through the trees they use their four fingers to grab branches but not their thumbs.
c. Gibbons hands and feet have been influenced by the fact that they are always in the trees and that they primarily are foragers. They have adapted for the same reason that Gibbons need to use their hands and feet for maintaining their life style in the tree tops.
d.
Chimpanzee (Great ape/Hominidae)
a. Chimpanzees live in rain forests and wet savannas, also woodlands and bamboo forests. They fluctuate between being on the ground and in the trees. They do most of their eating and sleeping in the safety of the canopy tops of forests. They are found in Africa.
b. Chimpanzees hands and feet are much like that of humans. They have five fingers with an opposable thumb and five toes with and opposable big toe. They used both their hands and feet for grabbing things. Chimpanzees used their thumbs and middle fingers to manipulate objects rather than forefinger.
c. Chimpanzees environment influenced their hands and feet to be needed to keep balance in the tree tops since they do not obtain tails as leverage. This could be why they adapted to have opposable thumbs. I think that their environment of having to stay high up in the trees for safety enabled this adaption to happen.
d.

Summarize your findings, evaluating the level of influence the environment has on the expression of physical and behavioral traits. (15 pts) In doing my research of the five primates I found that not all of them have the opposable thumbs like I have initially thought. It proved to me that habitat has a big impact on how primates evolve and change in order to maintain their life styles in their environment. Although they do all reside in the trees and move similarly through the trees, they do not use their hands and feet in the same ways. While some use them to eat, others need them to hold onto branches, and they need their hands and feet to do both at times. The environment that primates are located in is very influential to the way they use their hands and feet because if they did not live in forests or in trees they probably would loose the opposable thumb usage and just have small thumbs such as the lemur.

Thursday, February 21, 2013

Analogy/Homology Blog Post

1.The two species that possess homologus traits I chose are sharks and sunfish, also known as Mola Mola. Both species have fins, a dorsal fin and ventral fins. The fins are the homologous trait that the species share. They also share the fact that they use gills to breath under water. The sunfish, or Mola Mola, has a large dorsal fin and vantral fin. The two fins of the sunfish are its primary use of motion. The sunfish's fins flap from side to side. The sunfish's fins are made up of thin bones. It also has a small tail that acts as a rudder. The sunfish is a large flat fish that lays on the surface of the ocean water. It is roughly six feet tall in diameter, and has a truncated body, because of its body its only way for moving around is its two fins. A Great white shark has a dorsal fin on its back, with a smaller dorsal fin on its lower back. It also has a caudal fin which is located on its tail.It also has pectoral fins on each side. Also a pelvic fin located on its under belly, along with an anal fin. The sharks fins are made up of bone and muscles that allow the shark to have power an strength when moving. The dorsal fins on the shark allow it to move forward, prompted by the caudal fin which moves from left to right that gives the shark speed. The pectoral fins enable the shark to move from left to right. And the pelvic and anal fins give the shark balance. The common ancestor of these two species where aquatic vertebrates, which evolved the aquadic body needed to maintain life in under water living. It enabled them to have fins and gills. 2. The two different species I chose where a shark and a dolphin who posses an analogous trait, which are their body types of stream lines, fins, and flippers. Both species have similar body types and move in similar motions. Although a shark is a fish and a dolphin is a mammal. A dolphin has five fins. The first is a dorsal fin that keeps the dolphin up right and allows them to not roll constantly. It's purpose is to also help maintain their body heat of 97-99 degrees since dolphins are mammals. The dorsal fin releases excess body heat if a dolphin does become over heated. The dolphins have a fluke fin in which they use it to move forward with an up and down motion. A fluke is said to be made up of two fins since it is divided by a median arch. The remaining two fins are called pectorals. These two fins allow the dolphins to stop and turn, and act to help balance the dolphin. These two fins are the only two that contain bones, while the other fins are made up of fibrous connective tissues. A Great white shark has a dorsal fin on its back, with a smaller dorsal fin on its lower back. It also has a caudal fin which is located on its tail.It also has pectoral fins on each side. Also a pelvic fin located on its under belly, along with an anal fin. The sharks fins are made up of bone and muscles that allow the shark to have power an strength when moving. The dorsal fins on the shark allow it to move forward, prompted by the caudal fin which moves from left to right that gives the shark speed. The pectoral fins enable the shark to move from left to right. And the pelvic and anal fins give the shark balance. No the common ancestor of these species did not share an analogous trait, because the common ancestor was a land mammal and the environment caused the change in the species allowing them to adapt to living in water.

Thursday, February 14, 2013

Protein synthesis coding

C C T A C A C A C A A G T A C A A C C G A A C G T C A A T C A A G T T C T G A C C T T A A T C G G

Thursday, February 7, 2013

Historical Influences on Darwin

Jessica Cedillo Anthro. 101
1. Jean Baptiste Lamark attempted to explain the evolutionary process. He suggested that there was a correlation between species and their environment. He went on to explain that if the environment of a species changed so would the species, in order to accommodate to its surroundings. The results of the species accommodations would be that the species would either develop or begin to lack certain body parts that the species needs or doesn't need to survive. The body parts that they need would be modified so that they would be increasingly used and the body parts that the species does not need would eventually over time decrease and cease to exist. http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/0_0_0/history_09
2. The point most effected by Jean Baptiste Lamark is that if the environment changes, the traits that are helpful or adaptive to that environment will be different. This point was influenced by Jean because he proposed that species adapt to their environment. In this point, it states that the traits that are helpful will essentially be the most successful in the natural environment.
3. I don't think Darwin would have been able to develop his theory of natural selection without Jean Baptiste Lamarks theory because Jean was able to pave the way for Darwin. He was able to explain how species evolve to meet needs to their surroundings and Darwin used this as a plateau to work off.
4. The Church greatly affected Darwin and his publication of On the Origin of Species by prolonging his publication. Darwin was fearful of how the Church would respond to his book and knew he would receive great criticism and even be looked down upon for his books publication.