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.