That being said, I also think that sweating can be a Facultative adaption because sweating lasts until the heat goes away but our body is still cooling down minutes after. It takes longer to stop sweating and to cool down than it did to get hot and to start sweating.
Darker skin can be the developmental adaption because the hotter and more sun exposed locations will produce more golden and sun kissed skin tones than places where there is minimal sun exposer and it rains a lot. In a place like that there might be more pale and lighter skin tones. Even if a lighter skinned person lives in a sun exposed area they are more likely to get burnt damaging their skin, which leads to preventatives like sun screen and big hats.
Cultural adaptions are a bit creative. From what I've seen in our California culture, to escape the heat a water source is the go to escape. A lake, a pool, the ocean, some sprinklers; anything will do when it comes to staying cool. For others who hate bodies of water as humans we have created air conditioners and fans to soothe discomfort. I also think that cultural adaptions we have are big hats and sunscreen like I mentioned before but also umbrellas and canopies, etc.
by humans is to learn how to better our ways of surviving and adapting to the heat. Especially with the problems of global warming and climates changes it is beneficial to know what can help us survive through all conditions.
Environmental influences are better to study than race because studying the environment gives us all the people that live there not just one race. Because each climate is different just like how each individual is different even from the same race it combines the people living in an area together rather than a race which can be distributed over continents. By studying it this way, the group of people living in that environment will have something in common .. the environment. No matter what race they will have the environment in common which will help in the research of the effect of heat on individuals in that climate.
Have to stay cool one way or another! :)
You've got the basics on heat stress but could you be a little more specific from a biological perspective on how heat can negatively impact homeostasis?
ReplyDeleteCan you explain how sweating helps to cool the body?
Sweating is a very inefficient way of cooling the body, so other adaptations are needed if heat stress continues. An example of a facultative adaptation would be vasodilation, which opens the capillaries near the skins surface to help facilitate heat dispersal.
Melanin levels in the skin are adaptations to solar radiation, not to heat stress. A developmental adaptation to heat stress is a thinner, longer body shape to help disperse excess heat.
Good cultural adaptations.
Good explanation for the benefits of the adaptive approach.
I agree with your conclusions on the lack of usefulness of race.
Hi Kari,
ReplyDeleteI thought your post was very informative regarding the short term adaption that humans use to resist heat; you touched upon sweat rather extensively and how we use it to keep ourselves cool. In addition, I thought your developmental adaptation was very creative, although I would add that skin color can be genetic but the level of skin color is often determined by sunlight (for example, I have friends with pale skin who tan often and therefore have darker skin, but their skin is still lighter than that of others whose skin color is naturally darker than theirs). The only major critique I have with your post is that you did not provide a unique facultative adaptation; however, since sweat can arguably be classified as both types of adaptations, I understand your reasoning behind using it twice. Very informative post, I thought you did an especially good job of arguing for the use of environmental influences over race as a basis for human research!