Human adaptations to higher altitudes

Human adaptations to higher altitudes

High altitude has a positive and negative effect on humans.Higher elevation interrupts homeostasis in several ways. When we breath air at sea level atmospheric pressure is about 14.7 pounds per square inch which allows for oxygen to easily pass through our lungs and into the blood. At higher altitudes low air pressure makes it harder for oxygen to enter the cardiovascular system. This is called hypoxia which can be referred to as oxygen deprivation. Other side-effects of this include lack of appetite, vomiting, headache, distorted vision, fatigue, and difficulty with memorizing and clearly thinking. There is also an increase in heart failure due to the amount of stress on the lungs. A positive effect that this has is "researchers from the University of Colorado School of Medicine and the Harvard School of Global Health reported that people generally live longer at high altitudes and have a lower risk of dying from coronary artery disease. This positive effect occurs unless people have chronic breathing problems.The researchers speculated that mild hypoxia improves the way the heart functions and produces new blood vessels that increase blood flow for the heart. An alternative explanation presented by the authors is that increased exposure to ultraviolet radiation from the sun at higher altitudes increases the body's ability to produce vitamin D, which has beneficial effects on the heart." 

With short term adaptation there is an increase in breathing and heart rate to as much as double, even while resting. Pulse rate and blood pressure go up sharply as our hearts pump harder to get more oxygen to the cells

With faculative adaption and higher altitudes, humans can adapt fairly quickly to shifts in the density of oxygen. For example the primary solution for the Indians in the high mountains of Peru and Bolivia resolved to producing more hemoglobin which allows them to expand their lungs more. 

  

You can see Developmental adaptions in the people of A recent study of Tibetan who live their lives at around 15,000 feet has shown that they have 10 oxygen-processing genes not commonly found in lowland populations.

Cultural adaptations are seen with with climbers who use the tool of oxygen tanks to help them reach really tall peaks of mountains which cannot be reached without extra oxygen. 

By studying all these different types of adaptations we can see how amazing humans are and what we are capable of! We can adapt and change to live in harsh environments that can positively effect us. For example this effects us in a productive way with the athletes in the Olympics because they train at higher altitudes for months so when the go back down to sea level their lungs are expanded to the hemoglobin. 

We cant use race to understand the variations of these adaptations because race has no genetic basis. It is better to look at these as environmental influences on adaptions because most humans can achieve what these people achieved that live in these harsh climates. 

Language post

Language blog post

Could you imagine what our world would be like without any ability to communicate with one another? Over the weekend I was asked to conduct an experiment dealing with language barriers between one human to another. The first part of the experiment included engaging in a conversation for 15 minutes where I was not allowed to use any version of a symbolic language (no speaking, writing, or ASL), and the second half I was asked to spend 15 minutes communicating without any physical embellishments, i.e., no hand signals, no vocal intonation, no head, facial, or body movements.

Overall both the experiments were very hard to do, but I found this way easier than the other version of communicating. Acting out things like in charades was more difficult than just mouthing the words and using facial expressions. My partner throughout the conversation seemed to focus in more on the way I moved my mouth, taking the visuals of my face, and translating it into words. When communicating complex ideas the speaking culture would be the best and easiest way to communicate ideas because you could convey emotion the simplest way. I think the speaking culture would look at the symbolic culture in a negative way by thinking less of them because they don’t use sounds. A good example of individuals in our culture that have issues speaking that we adapt to is foreign people with little English. As the listener we have to look at the persons facial expressions and hand gestures to communicate efficiently.  

The second experiment I was asked to spend 15 minutes communicating without any physical embellishments, i.e., no hand signals, no vocal intonation, no head, facial, or body movements. I had the most incredibly hard time not using the vocal intonations! I was amazed! It was impossible for me to have a conversation because I kept having to repeat myself over and over. I never knew that was such a big part of our language and how we talk! My partner just kept looking at me with this confused face about what I was saying and they turned there ear to my mouth to try and hear what I was saying. I had no idea how important non speech techniques were in our society. Just facial expressions and hand gestures alone make such an impact in the way we speak.  I think that there are people in this world that can’t read body language and it leads to very bad consequences if you can’t read if someone is angry at you. I think in a war type of scenario it would benefit not to use body language.

This was a very interesting experiment between the two different types of communicating. I was very interested and hysterical on the second method of communicating and I found that a world where we had these limitations would be way to difficult. 

Piltdown Hoax

Piltdown Hoax 

In 1912, in the small village of Piltdown, Charles Dawson was digging in a gravel pit and came upon some ancient human bones. He invited one of the best geologists in England, Arthur Smith Woodward and Pierre Teilhard soon join Dawson to investigate the findings together. The findings showed a cross between a human and a monkey which would prove a stage of evolution in between humans and monkeys. When Woodward made the findings known this had a big effect on the scientific community, for example, it proved Arthur Keith's theory of humans having big brains before they walked upright. Scientists in England rejoiced because they too have ancient human fossils just like the rest of the great countries.  

Every great scientist is human and we all make mistakes. The mistake they made at Piltdown was they were only looking for remains of a human at a different stage in evolution. They did not question what they were finding. 

They discovered during the experimentation phase of the scientific process using several instruments that it was a hoax. After WWII scientists invented a fluorine dating test where they would measure the amount of fluorine in the object and be able to calculate how old it was. They discovered that the remains were only 100,000 years old, the material had all been stained, and the teeth had been filed down. 

It would be possible to remove the human factor by only using computers, but it would not benefit the scientific community. Even though computers would not make mistakes you cant beat a humans intuition, and gut feelings about things. If there was one thing we could learn from the Piltdown incident it would be you cant always trust your superiors for evidence. 

Diet Traits in Primates

Diet Traits in Primates

Chimpanzees 

Chimpanzees live in African rain forests, grasslands, and woodlands. They do walk on all fours, but live and sleep in trees. Chimpanzees are usually fruit and plant eaters, but also consume, insects, eggs, and meat. They have a very broad diet that consists of hundreds of foods. They are even known to be smart enough to shape and form tools using sticks to get to insects and other prey. In chimpanzees they have adapted to having a very wide variety of foods in their diet.

Orangutans

Orangutans live in Sumatra and Borneo rain forests. With their long arms they are well suited to live in the trees where they build nests using leaves and branches. Since the rain is so harsh they often build umbrellas out of large leaves to protect them from the rain. During the daylight hours they search and gather for their food which consists of fruit,leaves,bark,insects, and on rare occasions meat. 

Mountain Gorillas

There are only 700 Mountain Gorillas left in existence and they live in the Virunga Mountains in central africa, Rwanda,Uganda,and the Democratic Republic of Congo. A silver back gorilla that commands them tells them when it is time to eat their vegetarian diet of roots, shoot, fruits, wild celery, bark, and pulp.

Baboons

Baboons live in either Africa or Arabia. Baboons have become destructive to farms as they have become destructive to most farms because of the Baboons diet of crops, grasses, seeds, barks, roots, and they also have a taste for meat. 

 

Spider Monkey

Spider monkeys are found in Central and South America and can also be found as far north as Mexico. Spider monkeys find food in the tree tops and survive on nuts, fruits, leaves, bird eggs, and spiders. Living in the trees they have adapted to the food up there. You can see this because none of their food groups exist on the floor. 

Homologous and Analogous Traits

Homologous Traits

Many animals throughout the animal kingdom have similar homologous structures. humans and bats derived from a common ancestor because they have the same bone structure, but is used for a different purpose. 

As you can see the bat and the humans have the same bone structure. As humans we use our arms and hands to do pretty much everything. Bats have the same bone structure but use it to fly. 

This tiny shrew like creature called the ancestral placental animal is the common ancestor between these mammals. 

Analogous Traits

Many animals have similar structures but no common ancestor. They develop similar structures through evolution in their harsh climate. 

The analogous trait that is similar between these two species is their fins. They could not possess a common ancestor because their bone structures are not similar what so ever. 

Protein synthesis

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There are several individuals that had a major impact on Darwin, but the most important influence was Charles Lyell. Lyell was known for one of the most influential books of our time called The Principles of Geology. Lyell's book stated his theory that the Earth's crust was always changing a small amount over a vast period of time. Lyell's "Uniformitarian" idea was extremely controversial for 1830 and he was criticized and ridiculed for his theory. While Darwin was on his boat The Beagle, he experienced an earthquake and then measured an 8 foot uplift in the land. Darwin took the motto of uniformitarianism, "The present is the key to the past," and he applied it to his research on evolution. Darwin came to the conclusion that just like how the land slowly developed to what we see today, the biological evolution of creatures and life around us took just as much time for organisms to develop into their full potential. Just like Lyell's book not being accepted by the church neither was Darwin theory on evolution. Neither of their ideas were accepted during their lifespan but their contributions and ideas to science live on today.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/02/4/l_024_01.html