Heat

1. Heat is considered an environmental stress. Excess heat can cause damage to the body and disrupt homeostasis by making you feel sick, can cause heat exhaustion, heat stroke, or even death.

2.   Short term- Sweating
Your bodies way in trying to cool down


 Facultative: Low Blood Pressure
Your blood vessels dilate and can cause lowering of BP




Developmental: Extra Melanin
Humans in areas with excess heat develop skin with extra melanin for protection from the UV rays


Cultural: Less Clothing
Outside temperatures rise, clothing becomes minimal for the body to stay cool


3. Human Variation along clines is beneficial to know because it allows you to really understand the different aspects that can really play the part in environmental stresses and how they affect our homeostasis. This information is useful to know because it can really help establish better ways to help people during summer, like for example knowing the facultative adaptation is great, and it also is beneficial to know because you are understanding why certain areas around the world are how they are, whether it is their skin, clothing, or health status.

4. Using the environmental adaptations to understand human variation because it is seeing the human as whole, everyone is the same body wise, so you are looking at the adaptations and seeing why humans react the way they do. By looking at it from a race standpoint, you would be missing certain key aspects, and not everyone of the same race would maybe not react the same.

Piltdown Hoax

The Piltdown Hoax occurred in 1912, in a small town named Piltdown. When an amateur Archaeologist named Charles Dawson, was digging in a gravel pit, he discovered a portion of an ancient human skull. When Dawson found this piece, he invited prestigious scientists and archaeologists to come and dig with him to see for themselves. He then saw he got more recognized and more respect, they started finding more and more ancient bone fragments including a jaw bone piece with two teeth. This hoax would have taught us that humans evolved from England, not just Asia or Africa. The effects it had on the scientific community were amazement and dedication. They gathered together in search for more clues and artifacts that could bring this discovery to life. When Dawson passed away, the group of scientists and archaeologists stopped finding evidence in the gravel pits. People began to have suspicions now about the "findings" that were found with Dawson. When technology made that first advancement to test bone age, it was a fluoride test. The fluoride test came back and concluded that the bone age was only 100,000 years old, not as old as they once thought. They also tested that jaw as well and it came back around the same. Further down the road through the years, more advancements came and they were able to conclude that the teeth had been scraped down and the bones were stained and the indents were made with tools.

The human faults that came into play in this situation was from the scientists. The scientists didn't question Dawson's findings at all. they believed him wholeheartedly without running any further tests. I think when the scientists began finding artifacts on their own in the gravel pit, with the help of Dawson , they kind of threw out tests and doubts out the window, and had the mindset of ""well why would this be fake?".

The findings that proved that the skull was fake, were purposely staining of the skull, the teeth were shaved down with scrapers, the jaw was broken. The jaw was broken at the tip, bottom of chin area, revealing that the skull came from a female orangutan. If that piece was there when the found it, they would have instantly known it was not human. But since that piece was missing, the scientists had no choice in to trust Dawson and their guts, saying it was real.

I personally don't think it is possible to remove that "human" factor from science,  so that mistakes like this won't happen in the future. Because unless we turn science into strictly being run by only machines, then that is when i think you will HAVE to take the human factor out. But because the human brain is behind science, there is no way to tell that mistakes like this won't happen in the future. Science and technology is always advancing, giving that even if mistakes like Piltdown Hoax DO happen in the future, we will catch it when technology then advances again because there will always be something new to back up your findings, and when that happens, you most always find things that you couldn't see before.

The life lesson i can take from this is that, you should always do research on your own when you find things, especially when you find important things like that in a group. It is foolish to fully trust another person with such important evidence. You need to act like an educated adult and do the research and tests for yourself as well to make sure, especially when it is a discovery that is in regards to our human race.

Homology/Analogy

Homologous Trait:

• The two species i picked that demonstrate a shared homologous trait are humans and monkeys. The trait shared between the two species would be the tailbones. We as humans do not have actual tails like monkeys do, but we share that same bone. We have evolved so that our 'tails' are not physically present outside our body any more and they don't typically have a use anymore,and they don't grow to the full extent like a monkeys does. This bone helps hold our muscles in place in that area(including the spinal column), and it helps us to put to use the muscles in that area for us as humans to eliminate waste correctly, and for monkeys it does the exact same. Some say that the tailbone in humans is considered to be 'vestigial', but i would disagree because our body still needs and uses the bone today. Monkeys have more free range you could say with their tail bone because their tail is connected through it and they can use their tails for many things, so to have that base bone is very important for them as well.

• Although we share the same tailbone with humans and monkeys, they are slightly different in the way they are used. for example, our tailbone is apart of a spinal column and like i said before it is used to hold muscles in place and muscles for waste elimination. It is a vertebrae at the bottom of the spine. For monkeys, their tailbones are considered to be the base of their balance, because they use their tails to grab things, hold onto things and to be centered. 

• It is said that chimpanzee is the common ancestor between humans and monkeys. The chimpanzee does have a tailbone just like humans and monkeys do. The chimpanzees though have a bigger pelvis than humans and their spinal column isnt as long as humans.

HUMAN

MONKEY

CHIMPANZEE

Analogous Trait:

• The two species i picked that demonstrate a shared analogous trait is the human and the octopus. The trait shared between the two species would be the eye. Like humans, an octopus also has two eyes. These are considered to be an analogous trait because the two species are not anywhere near the same or similar really at all for that matter, but our eyes are very similar with each other. Octopus's are marine animals that have different organs than us, different skin, different body parts etc. In some ways the octopus has the advantage with their eyes. They dont have a blindspot unlike humans do, meaning that an octopus can see everything that is going on around them, so with that, thy are more aware and cautious. An octopus eye also has more photoreceptors than a human eye, meaning they have much better vision than humans.

• Although yes we share the same trait with an octopus, we as humans have another advantage with our eyes than an octopus has with theirs. first off, we can see in color. So that means that they can only tell the difference between light and dark. Our eyes are similar in structure based off that we both have eyelids, corneas, pupils, iris, ciliary muscles, lens, retina, optic nerve, and optic ganglion and they both resemble each other.

• I couldnt find the common ancestor between the octopus and human, but i do know that we last shared a common ancestor 500 million years ago.

Protein Synthesis

UCAATACCACGAGTAAAACGCAAGTAACGTCCGGTGAATCAACU

Scientific Method Scenario

Scenario:  About mid-way through the semester, in a class you are taking on campus, you become increasingly irritated by a student who sits in the back of the class. The student always manages to fall asleep about 15 minutes into the lecture. Normally it wouldn’t bother you, but occasionally he lets out a snore that breaks your attention and disrupts the class. The instructor has repeatedly asked the student to work harder to stay awake, but he is not having any success

1.Hypothesis: My hypothesis is that the student is going to sleep too late so therefore he is not getting enough sleep. So that is why he is falling asleep in the middle of lecture.

2.Test:
 A)  I would first go and sit next to the student and ask him what time he usually goes to bed. If the student says any time after 2am, then i would suggest that he should try and go to bed earlier. I will tell him each week to increase the time by a half hour. So, for example i would say week 1 try and go to bed by 1:30, then week 2: 1am, and so forth until he is at his desired sleep level.

B) If my thesis is correct, and he is actually sticking to that plan, he should be coming into class more energetic and will be able to stay up for the duration of the whole class meeting time.

C) If the student is still coming into class tired and is sleeping during class, then more data should be looked at. This could point to that he is either not following the plan, has a medical condition like insomnia, or just isn't drinking a caffeine substance in the morning.

3. Untestable Hypothesis: The student felt that this class was very comfortable and relaxing for him, so that is why he constantly fell asleep.

Bonus Opportunity

If i was stranded on a desert island, I would bring: a pool float and pre-mixed margaritas. If i am stuck on a desert island why not enjoy it? Don't have to go back to work or anything.