Environmental Stress

1. I have chosen high levels of solar radiation for my environmental stress. This can disturb the homeostasis of humans, most of the time in a very noticeable way. When high levels of UV light hit a person's skin, it can be very damaging to the skin cells. Depending on how exposed one is, solar radiation can result in burns and blistering of the skin and even skin cancer if the exposure is long and extreme.

2. (Short-term adaptation) As far as I know humans don't have a short-term adaptation to solar radiation just yet.
    (Facultative adaptation) Humans have the capability of tanning when exposed to UV light. This is a result of a temporary increase of melanin production causing the skin color to become darker and more protective against solar radiation. As exposure the UV light decreases the skin color returns to its normal shade.

    (Developmental adaptation) An example of this is more deeply pigmented skin. As more and more melanin is produced to constant exposure the UV light, it became easier to survive in areas with high exposure sunlight. With this, a darker skin color was passed down as a result of natural selection.
 
    (Cultural adaptation) One practice for this is the use of sunscreen. This produces a protective layer over the skin with temporarily blocks the damaging light from the skin. Another adaptation is protective clothing. This also acts as a shield against solar radiation.


3. Studying human variation across environmental clines can allow us to understand how populations around the world respond and change to the different environmental stresses surrounding them. This information can be very useful to humans. It allows us to observe how people have reacted to the stresses around them and create a better living situation. This allows us to create cultural adaptations such as sun screen, or better clothing to protect people against the cold.

4. The only way I could see race being used is by mapping out the different areas people live and seeing how those locations allow for genetic change. Using environmental influences over race as a way to understand human variation is more than anything giving you the reason or reasons why people are they way they are or look the way they look. Today, race is not a proper tool to categorize people as interracial mating occurs more frequently, but whatever your race is, your physical appearance shows more of your location on the planet as well as your ancestors.

Piltdown Hoax

In 1912 an archaeologist names Charles Dawson announced that he had in his possession what appeared to be a piece of an ancient human skull found by a laborer in Piltdown. He invited England's leading geologist from the Natural History Museum, Arthur Smith Woodward and a French paleontologist, Father Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, to continue digging where the skull was found. That summer they made great finds at the site. Charles Dawson dug up a jaw bone from the skull which resembled the jaw bone of an ape, but with teeth that appeared to be human. This discovery was said the be the missing link named Piltdown Man. Woodward's prestige removed any doubt about Piltdown Man. The trio continued to dig and made more great finds which seemed to silence any critics of their doubts though no more fossils turned up after Charles Dawson died in 1916. After conducting a fluorine test on the Piltdown Man in 1949, the results showed how young the remains really were. In 1953 a full scale analysis was launched. It became evident that the artifact was stained, cut with a steel knife and the teeth were file down. The jaw bone actually came from a female orangutan. Charles Dawson became the prime suspect as nothing was found in Piltdown after his death. In 1975, carved bones were found in a trunk of a workman of the natural history museum forged the same way Piltdown man was.


 I think the biggest fault of being human here is greed and jealousy. The want of being successful and admired can be too much for people at times and in this case was. With telling a lie about something like science, you slow down the forward progress other people are trying to make. Especially with a lie of this magnitude, people have to stop and notice and in turn try to build of what is now in front of them ultimately leading them nowhere.


 As time goes on, more discoveries are made and these discoveries are used to aid us in whatever we may need. Such was the case in the Piltdown Man hoax. One being that you can measure fluorine content to roughly date an object will allowed scientist to realize that Piltdown Man was rather young. With that, better dating methods became available over time allowing a more accurate age of the jaw bone found. As well as technology used to better see the forgery with the jaw bone.


I don't think it is possible to remove the "human" factor from science, at least not completely. The furthest I think that we have been able to do that is with all the advances in science we have provided allowing the most precise accuracy in almost everything we do. Though this factor can be harmful, it's also the very thing that moves us along. The same need for success used the right way can become a need for knowledge and the truth rather than mere fame or glory. There are always going to be set backs when humans are involved, but these set backs are also what drive us in how they make us find better ways to verify any findings or thoughts people may have.


I think one big thing that can be taken from this is to always trust in facts over opinion. Opinions are good for initial thoughts or discoveries, but do not allow it to be your final way of looking or believing in something. Always want to be 100% sure, or as close to that, of anything you may question.

Homologies & Analogies

Homologous Traits

a. I am going to be describing the tailbone of the Human and the Monkey.

b. A humans "tailbone" is left only as the bone known as the coccyx where the monkey's continues as a longer line of bone as well as fur, muscle, nerves, etc. I would imagine that based on some force of evolution, it was no longer necessary for one line of the ancestor to possess a tail causing a species without tails.

c. They both came from primates which has the lesser evolved version of the tail as the human and monkey.

                                    

Analogous Traits

a. I am going to be describing a trait between a lizard, a small reptile, and a rhino, a very large mammal.

b. An analogous trait of these species is a horn grown by both animals. The rhino has a large horn above its nose while the lizard has several horns on different locations of its head and face. They are structurally the same and used against predators and prey. 

c. The common ancestor of the two is the Vertebrata. I don't think the common ancestor possessed that specific trait as the mammal, the ancestor of the rhino, does not include a horn and is a direct descendant of the vertebrata.

                   

Protein Synthesis

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Evolution Blog

In general I feel that people become somewhat one track minded with this question. A lot of times when people think of "evolving" they tend to see it as more of an immediate effect rather than the long period of time it actually takes. Also a lot of times people jump right to the whole "humans coming from monkeys" aspect of evolution. They look at a monkey and think evolution is humans coming directly from monkeys and simply refuse to believe all the other things that evolution really means. With that I've always felt that a better way to ask that question is "Do you believe that living things, over a long period of time, adapt to their surroundings to survive which can cause a physical change within a species?"