Cold Weather

There are many different types of enviromental stresses that put pressure upon us as human beings. These stresses can also affect animals and plants. We do usually put ourselves into these living situations where we will be affected but some do not have a choice. The cold plays a major part on individuals and the way they live and survive in the cold weather. People living in the cold or just exposed to the cold temperatures for too long can experience hypothermia. The cold also increases the likely hood that these individuals will stay in side more than someone in warmer climates. These people living in the cold are going to be depleted from Vitamin D. When these people do go to sunnier, warmer areas, they are more likely to get sunburns or sun poisoning which will hurt their immune system. People who live in the cold will also experience their levels of oxygen to be affected. When these people work or play, their heart will be working harder due to these conditions. For people with heart problems, this could be very detrimental to their health. The types of food that are able to be grown in these conditions is also very different from sunny conditions or others. The people living in these enviroments will have different selections of foods and have to eat a lot more food with perservatives in order to get the food they want.

People have learned to adapt to the cold and actually a lot of people love to be in cold weathers such as the snow. 

A short term adapation to the cold weather is shivering. Shivering is a homeostatic function that our body employs to regulate our body temperature.  We shiver in an effort to keep ourselves warm. Shivering is something that just happens, we don't have to make ourselves shiver, our bodies realize that they are too cold and are trying to warm back up.

A facultative adaptation to the cold could be gaining weight to keep warmer. By eating very fatty foods and a large amount of food, the bodies Basal Metabolic Rate will increase which will produce body heat. If only everyone knew that increasing your muscle mass will increase your BMR, we would be a much healthier species. This is a biological function that would occur over time by eating more and more and doing less physical activity but it can also be reversed over time. This would require a diet change and workout regime but it could be done. If only everyone knew that increasing your muscle mass will increase your BMR, we would be a much healthier species.


According to Allen's Rule, developmental adaptations to the cold weather are such that of body size and shape. People with shorter, stubbier limbs are going to be able to maintain more body heat then people with longer bodies. The shorter limbs make the body more compact and then they have less surface area. With the less surface area compared to body mass, the body heat is not lost to the environment as easily. 

Cultural adaptations to the cold weather would be the change in the way people eat and their nutrition. The people living in colder climates are going to have different eating habits than those of in warmer areas. They are going to consume much more carbohydrates. Carbohydrates are complex organic compounds that are the main fuel source for the metabolic process. It takes carbohydrates a long period of time to be broken down since they are so complex. This gives the people long lasting energy and therefore body heat. 

Studying human variation helps us to understand why certain people or cultures live the way the do. It can help us to see why some cultures are larger than others and why some have a longer life span than others. If we studied a particular culture, we would be able to see how their lives differ from ours and what could be changed to either to improve the life span or way of life. 


I think that race could be used to understand the variation of adaptations in such a way just depending on skin tone and color. Skin color is controlled by melanin production. Melanin provides protection against solar radiation and solar vitamin D absorption is impeded by melanin. People living in colder climates will not be exposed to the sun as much as others in warmer climates and will be depleted of vitamin D. Their skin color is going to be lighter in areas where they get less vitamin D because people with lighter skin are able to generate more vitamin D. Environmental influences on adaptations are a better way to understand human variation rather than the use of race. Race is a vary specific topic and does not provide all the necessary evidence needed to study human variation but just for that race.

Language 

For my language assignment, I sat down with a few people from work. I thought that this would be the best way for me to do this assignment because I only know these people as co-workers and not outside of work. I do not know there sense of humor or anything about them besides their work ethics. I figured that for both parts of the assignment, that it would not only let me get to know them better, but I also wouldn't be able to expect what they were going to say or do. It would get me a better all around experience dealing with individuals that have different ways of communicating with me rather than my family or significant others that would know what to expect from me.

I actually decided to first walk up to the group of my chosen participants and join in on their conversation. Only trick was, I wasn't able to actually "join in" verbally. The looks on their faces were priceless when I just simply nodded, pointed and shook my head to them. They looked at me as if I was crazy. They actually all asked me if I was sick or had lost my voice. I was only able to go on with this for about 2 minutes before everyone was starting to walk away from me thinking I was weird. I then told everyone what I was doing. They joined in with me and we had a "conversation". It was so hard to not speak! I have never had to do this before and struggled a lot. I felt like I was playing charades and no one could guess what I was trying to say. There really was no way to know what I was referring to or "saying" since we didn't start off with a topic, just like it would be if you were communicating with someone foreign. 

During this time, everyone started to speak very slow and also started to use a lot of hand gestures almost as if I couldn't hear them. They knew that I physically could hear them but it was just a instinct for them to do so. They would not talk over one another either which normally happens frequently. If we were to be from two different cultures, I feel that I had a better advantage at communicating than they did, since I could not communicate back with words, they had to understand my gestures. I know that it is harder for people that are deaf to communicate with others since the American language is very difficult and complex, but I think when you take out all of the extra words and added in stuff, it breaks it down to a much easier language and communication. When you slow down our everyday super fast process of talking and communicating, things get a lot more understandable and free-flowing. 

So I usually talk an extreme amount and use even more facial expressions, hand gestures and shoulder shrugs than the normal human being. This next part of the assignment was horrible for me as you could imagine. It took me three tries to figure out that I was not going to be able to make it the full 15 minutes. About 6 minutes was my best try and that was with me really focusing on not using any of my gestures. The conversation was a lot slower and more concentrated on my task at hand rather than on the topic of interest. My co-workers did not know what to take of what I was saying either. We are not very close in friendship, but they at least know what a normal response or feeling to something might be and I gave none of that. When you say, "Ya, that sounds awesome," in a mono-tone voice, they did not know whether or not I was being sarcastic or excited about what they said. Not being able to physically express yourself in conversation makes the conversation dull and boring! I think that non-verbal communication while communicating is probably more important than the verbal communication. I honestly do not know what I would do if I could not scrunch my face up when I said "Ew" about something. This second part of the assignment made me realize how much easier the first part was than I originally thought. I actually went back and did the first part of the assignment over later with my boyfriend and it went much smoother than my first try around. I was able to use my facial expressions and hand motions more freely and recognize that I could easily communicate with just that. It did take a little bit more time to get my point across, but he got the "picture". 

I think the adaptive benefit to being able to read body language would to be if you ever encountered someone who did not fully understand English. If you could sort of make out what they were saying but a few words did not fit, and you could see that their facial expression was showing what they meant, you would be able to make out their sentence. When people can't make out body language, like blind people, they will go by the different pitches in your tone of voice to help them understand your point of view, whether it be sad, angry, happy or excited. This is to them as facial expressions and body movement is to people who can see. I personally do not know of any environmental conditions that would make it easier to not be able to read body language. I think that body language is just as important to us as actual verbal language is. 

Piltdown Hoax

In a Southern English town called Piltdown, was a man named Charles Dawson. He was an local archaeologist. A fragment of a skull was found while digging one day and was given to Dawson. It looked as if it could have been one of the oldest remains showing evolution from Apes to Humans. It was similar to the cranium of a human but the jaw was similar to an ape. Dawson had Arthur Smith Woodward come out to help him with this discovery. He was England's leading geologist of the Natural History Museum. He also had a French paleontologist named Father Pierre Teihard De Chardin by his side. The 3 men, referred to as the trio, went back to the discovery site and continued to look for more fossils. The last piece that Dawson discovered was the last piece ever found at the site. It happened to be a piece of a jawbone with human-like teeth. The jaw resembled that of an apes. There were fragments broken off but it was thought to have been small chips off at the time. The fragments all seemed to go together when the fossil was carefully put back together. At this time, there was no way to test the fossil for a time frame or any of the technology later used in the Piltdown Man hoax. Dawson was the one to write about the findings of the human skull that would show that that the Germans' ape man was not the earliest human fossil. This discovery put that the earliest human remains were that of a British man.

Finally, in 1949, a fluorine test was used on the fossils and showed that they were about 100,000 years old. This was astonishing and could not be possible. It was later discovered that the jawbone was that of a female Orangutan. The top part of the jaw bone was carefully broken off so that it fit into the human skull. The teeth were filled down to look like human teeth. They also died the remains. When all of these discoveries came about, Dawson had already passed away. It wasn't thought that Woodward was part of the hoax because he continued to search for years upon years after Dawson died for more remains. He was either blindsided by this hoax or playing it off for about 12 years. Father Chardin was very quite when the discoveries of the hoax came about.

Scientists are curious, creative and persistent by nature. It plays into there devotion for what they do. Everyone carries human faults. In the Piltdown Hoax, you had people wanting to be known as famous archaeologists. He or they, whoever was at fault, wanted to be known. They had so much pride in their work, that they thought this would get them recognized for other things as well as the biggest finding for that time period. The findings of this hoax eventually negatively affected all that were involved. We do not know who was lieing and forging things and who knew nothing about the hoax. This hoax had scientists studying wrongful knowledge for a very long time and it also makes people skeptical of what is the truth or not. 

Scientist had been skeptical from the first finding of the Piltdown mans remains. They never voiced their concerns until later on. After WWII, there was now a way for them to test the remains and see about how old they were. The fluorine test performed on the fossil in 1949 showed that they were found to be much younger than thought. The remains were also tested for levels of nitrogen. They eventually found out that the remains had been stained to look older than they were also. They could see under a microscope that the teeth had deep file marks still apparent on them. Science progressing and moving forward was what made it possible to test the Piltdown remains and show that it was a hoax.

I do not think it is possible to remove or reduce the "human" factor when it comes to science. Nor do I think that it should be removed. Scientists and archaeologists do what they do because they love it. They are intrigued by new discoveries and findings and want to know more about life before us. With such a big hoax putting such a huge damper on science, I feel that most know that they can not put anything out their that would jeopardize science any further. Their name is also at jeopardy too. Scientific testing and methods today had come such a far way from the past and it would be much harder for anyone to perform such a hoax again. I think it is basically impossible. Everything is tested out to prove its legitimacy and not much can get by that. Any mistakes one were to make would be fixed or re-evaluated.

I think that you cannot take any information from any source without doing your research and background check on the source. You have to make sure the information you are getting is legitimate and true. I also think that you can learn from this that a lie will usually always get out. Dawson lived his whole life as a liar and he had to deal with that everyday. He took that lie with him to his grave and now has a bad rap to go along with his name. He may have been looked at as someone important during his days, but now he is viewed as a man part of the biggest hoax in science history. I think you always need to look into things for yourself and make an informative decision before making any choices. I feel like this goes for science and evolution all around.

Lemurs (Prosimians/Strepsirhini) -  Lemurs are native to Madagascar and the Comoro Islands. Madagascar has a harsh seasonal climate that the Lemurs have had to adapt to. Specific things that the Lemurs do, help them to live under these harsh conditions. They occasionally store fat, hibernate when food sources are low, and have strict mating seasons. Most Lemurs live all of their life in the trees. Many of the larger species of Lemurs do live on the ground. Lemurs are usually active during the day and are very social. They live in family groups and the females have dominace over the males. Lemurs are forest creatures and many species live in Madagascar’s tropical rainforests, but some live in the dry deciduous forests. The lemurs’ muscular legs are adapted for jumping and their strong hans and fingers help them to climb trees easily. Lemurs are usually very small but they do vary in size depending on the species that you are looking at.

 The pygmy mouse Lemur is the smallest species 

of Lemurs. The pygmy mouse Lemur is actually 

the world's smallest primate. Their body length 

is usually only about 2.4 inches long with a tail 

length of up to 5.4 inches and only weigh about 

1.1 ounces. Lemurs can range anywhere from 1.1

 ounces to around 20lbs. The tails of all lemurs

 are usually longer than their body.

Most species of lemurs do exhibit 

sexual dimorphism, or different 

coloring between males and females. 

Both male and female ring-tailed 
lemur's have a fluffy, black-and-white 
striped tail. The only Lemur that 
is completely black is the male black 
lemur. The females have a white ruff 
around their black face and a white 
chest. The rest of the female's body 
is reddish brown. Both the male and 
female mongoose lemurs are a 
gray-brown color but the females 
have white cheeks and neck and the
males have red cheeks. 


Lemurs have fairly no competition with any other species of primates in Madagascar. They do, however, have competition amongst themselves. When Lemurs mate, they either have multiple male partners throughout one night, or the female chooses to have one male partner. In a study done, the larger lemurs had multiple partners while smaller lemurs decided to have only one. There is no precise answer to if the size of Lemurs has anything to do with their mating process or not. I believe the size of a Lemur does help them to move around the trees much quicker and faster. Also having a smaller body means that they require less food and nutrient. This makes it easier for them to survive in the conditions in Madagascar. 

Spider Monkey (New World Monkey/Platyrrhini) - Spider monkeys are new world primates that, most species, live in the tropical rain forests of Central and South America and live as far north as Mexico. Spider monkeys have long, lanky arms that help them to move from branch to branch in the rain forests. They also have gripping tails to aid in this. The spider monkeys spend most of their time up in the trees. They live in the upper layers of the rainforest's and forage. Due to their size, they require large tracts of moist evergreen forests. Black-headed Spider Monkeys are the largest spider monkey. They are an average weight of 24 lbs for males and 21.3lbs for females. 

Spider monkeys are not characterized by sexual dimorphism. The males and females are all about the same size and colors. There are a few differences between younger spider monkeys and their elders but not between the males and females. Not having a larger body or different colored hair or fur is completely fine for the spider monkeys since they do not have to worry about competition between each other. 

Baboon (Old World Monkey/Cercopithecidae) - There are five different species of Baboon's, all of which live in Arabia and Africa Baboons usually prefer savanna and other habitats that are semi-arid. A few baboons live in tropical forests. Baboons are ground dwelling animals and are found in open savannah, open woodland and hills across Africa. They do not have grabbing tails but do climb trees to eat, sleep and look out for danger below. In all species of Baboons, there is pronounced sexual dimorphism. It usually shows in the size of the Baboons when males are compared to females. Usually the males are larger. Specifically, the Hamadryas Baboon males are double the size of the females. The males fur is a silver-white color and the females are brown in color. The males also develop a large white mane and the females are mane less. 


Male Baboon's body measure up to 3ft and weigh between 40-70lbs and the female's body measures up to 2 ft and weigh between 20-35lbs. The tails of the baboons add about 1.3-2ft of extra length to the baboons.




The size of the male baboons compared to the females makes the males the stronger of the two. The males use their size to protect their females and themselves.




Gibbon (Lesser ape/Hylobatidae) - Gibbon's are a very small and lightweight animal.They spend most of their lives in trees. They are very acrobatic and fast primates. Gibbons are distributed in wild in the tropical and subtropical rain forests of Southeast, South and East Asia. They are also currently found in small populations in China, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Bangledesh, Northeast India, Myanmar, Malayysia and Indonesia. 


Gibbons are not sexually dimorphic in size. The males and females are about the same size. In some species, the Gibbons do have different colors from male to female. Since Gibbon's are generally small primates, they are also referred to as the "lesser apes". Most adult gibbons are only around 3 feet tall standing upright. They average around 12-22lbs in weight. The only Gibbons that show sexual dimorphism in size are the Siamangs. Since Gibbons are so agile and live amongst the tops of the trees, they do not need to be large to protect themselves, they are fast instead.

White-cheeked gibbons do have different fur colors. The males have black fur and skin with white fur on their cheeks. The females are golden or a reddish buff-colored and have black faces and dark brown or black fur on top of their heads. They also have white fur in a halo shape around their faces. 

Chimpanzee (Great ape/Hominidae) - Chimpanzees live in social communities with several dozen different animals. They can habituate themselves to African rain forests, woodlands and grasslands. Chimpanzees are found across a central band of the continent of Africa. Generally, chimpanzees are rain forest creatures. They span out around 21 different African countries from the west coast of the continent east through the vast central-African nation of Congo to the western reaches of Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Tanzani. Chimpanzees eat and sleep up in trees but they do spend most of their time on the ground. As long as Chimpanzees have access to forests that they can take shelter in and search for food, they can live in drier areas that have less trees. Male chimpanzees are larger than female chimpanzees. The average male chimpanzee weighs around 140-160lbs and the females weigh up to 110lbs. They are about the same height when standing upright. They live in a male dominated social structure. The males definitely have less tolerance towards other unfamiliar male chimpanzees, where-as the females don't.  

Each different type of primate definitely had a direct effect on their sizes from their living conditions. They use their body size to protect themselves either against each other or other species. The sexual dimorphism that is apparent in the different animals, seems to be more prominent in the larger animals. The smaller the animal, the less sexual dimorphism seems to be there. I also think that the smaller animals are safer amongst the high tree tops and do not need to protect themselves from anyone else. They have less competition so they haven't had to evolve as much when referring to their body sizes.  

Sources :

http://www.lemurworld.com/lemur-anatomy.html

http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/baboon/

http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/Primates/Facts/FactSheets/Gibbons/default.cfm

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/apes/chimp/

A) Two different species that posses homologous traits would be the whale and a human. Sounds crazy right? The front fins of a whale compared to the bones in the arm of a human are homologous. 

B) The bones in both of these animals, are basically the same bones. The bones in the human arm are going to be a different size from the bones in a whales front fins. They both serve for a function even though they are a slightly different function. The whale swims and the human uses their arms for everyday activities and to grab things. There are different things that could be made better or perfect in the human arm or whale fin but the structure that they have, is perfect for there species. They only need to compete for greatness amongst each other, not other species. A whale fin would not do any good on a human body and same goes for a whale to have the human arm structure because it would not be as great for swimming. 

C) As it is said, the ape is the common ancestor of the early human species. The ape was also the first species to possess "hand" structures. At that point in time, the apes used their arms and hands to walk on, where as today, the human uses them for a different purpose. 

A) Two animals that posses analogous traits would be a spider and a elephant leg. Both have "legs" but both species are from different origins. The legs of both species are also used for different purposes and work differently.

B) Spiders are from the insect species and elephants are from the mammal species. The legs of a spider are jointed leg segments and are called podomeires where as the elephants legs are composed of bones that are jointed together with ligaments. The legs of a elephant rotate in the socket as they walk. Elephants also apply power independently to each leg as compared to other animals applying power to their rear legs to drive them. 

C) I think the ancestors of the first insects did not have legs where as the first ancestors of mammals, did have legs. I think that enviromental pressure caused spiders to have legs to coupe with the pressures and get them to move around faster. 

Protein Synthesis DNA strand

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

Thomas Malthus

I feel that Thomas Malthus had one of the strongest positive influences over Darwin's development of his theory of natural selection. 

Malthus' theory on population was very simple. It was based on the assumption that the power of the population is much greater than the power of the Earth to provide subsistence for man. Basically, if man kept reproducing at their capable rate, there would come a point in time when there would not be enough resources to feed the people. Yes, there would be enough people to make food but not enough of the resources used to make the food. This would lead to a famine or other disasters. Malthus said that a population could only remain within its resource limitations by "positive and preventative checks." He claimed these positive checks to be things like war, disease and starvation. The preventative checks that could prevent overpopulation were things such as late marriage, celibacy and birth control. These positive checks raised death rates and the preventative checks lowered the birth rate. Malthus' theory on population made people realize that there was a point that would come when we would run out of resources if everyone and thing reproduce at their capacity.

• All organisms have the potential of reproducing exponentially. Two rabbits are roughly capable of producing approximately 200 rabbits in their lifetime. Imagine if all 200 baby bunnies had 200 hundred more baby bunnies… and so on… and so on… That is exponential growth that has the potential of having us up to our eyeballs in rabbits. But we aren’t up to our eyeballs in rabbits, are we? Why not? This question is the starting point of Darwin’s work.

Malthus taught us that positive and preventative checks were needed to keep us from overpopulation. In the speaking of bunnies, there would not be enough food for the bunnies to survive. The mothers clearly need enough food and shelter to be able to reproduce. At a point in time, the natural positive checks would start to play a part. The bunnies would starve and die. A disease from a deceased bunny could spread and cause further deaths. 

• Organisms with better access to resources will be more successful in their reproductive efforts. The rabbits with more food and water and shelter will reproduce more offspring than those rabbits with fewer of these resources.

Malthus used the idea of positive and preventative checks in his theory often. Organism's that had the access to food would not die from starvation. Ones that did not have as good of access could possibly die from starvation showing us a "positive check". People with the capability to obtain birth control, would not be reproducing, showing a preventative check. There are so many different examples to prove his theory. 

I personally do not think that Darwin could have developed his theory of natural selection without the influence of Thomas Malthus.  After Darwin read Malthus' work in 1838, he realized that when animals were in their struggle to survive, they would retain the favorable features that they had, that would help them adjust to their new environment and basically forget the other traits and features that they had. This is what the Theory of Natural selection was born from. I feel like without Darwin reading Malthus' work, I do not believe Darwin's theory would be quite the same.

The attitude of the church very much so affected Darwin and his publication of his book On the Origin of Species. At that point in time, it was a big deal to be questioning the church. The church was looked at as the highest form of belief. Darwin's work would have everyone questioning the church and it's teachings. It was a risky move for Darwin to even think about questioning or going against the church.