Human Variation and Race

The variation I have chosen for this assignment is heat. Heat is a major environmental stress. Too much heat we die not enough heat we die as well. Humans are not the only things affected by heat either. Everything on the planet is affected by heat. Most of life requires water. Water is under strict scientific rules that it must freeze at 0 degrees Celsius and boil at 100 degrees Celsius. The heat controls the water and the water controls life. If there is not enough heat plants will freeze and die and the food chain will die with it. The same thing happens when it gets too hot. The world is not now and not ever going to be at a constant temperature so being able to adapt to heat changes is crucial to our survival.

The ways in which we adapt to Heat changes are numerous depending on the climate or the necessary change. In a climate that was heating up we have made many adaptations Early in evolution we might have developed bipedalism and body hair defined by adaption’s to heat. Those were developmental adaptations. Different people spread out to inhabit different areas with different climates new traits might be beneficial. Like people in colder climates having blue eyes in response to the weather and it becoming more prominent in those places is cultural adaptations. Sweating is a short term adaptation. Someone in warm climates may develop calluses on their feet. That would be an example of facultative adaptation.  

The world is going to get warmer and it’s going to get colder so we must be able to adapt. It is important to study adaptations across all environmental areas.  It affects everyone, everywhere. If you look at how other cultures live and protect themselves from the elements it can help you deal with changing conditions. Farmers from a cold region might be able to share ways to deal with farming in cold climates and protecting against things freezing. People from warm weather areas might have tips about sustainable plants that don’t require a lot of water. In the end all of humanity is the same so each unique environment can help in it’s own way.

Piltdown Hoax

The PIltdown hoax was an attempt by English scientists to pass off fake fossil remains to prove their theories and achieve personal merit. Charles Dawson, a British archeologist claimed he had been given fossils of an early man. He claimed the fossils had been discovered in a gravel pit in east Sussex England. He bagman to find more until he claimed he had discovered a primitive man sort of missing link in the evolutionary chain. Dawson enlisted the help of Arthur Smith Woodward who was the keeper of the geological department at the British museum. Their conclusions were eventually proved incorrect. The bones had been from an orangutan and a modern human. The reputations and prior accomplishments of the men involved made it difficult to challenge but eventually science caught up and prevailed.
The scientists involved in the Piltdiwn Hoax had many flaws, they were driven by greed and arrogance.They were driven by aching notoriety in the scientific community, for such a discovery would be an extremely important finding. They had a blinding desire to be correct that any evidence in their favor was accepted without checking the facts.
The scientific method is set in motion instantly and intensely in findings like these. Scientist were observing and comparing it to other findings. They noticed skulls found in from periods much later had less brain matter. They used dating processes like measuring the fluorine content and found out the bones were much younger than advertised. Fossil claims are falsifiable and the piltdown fossils were easily proven wrong.
Science is the pursuit of facts. When we are not absolutely sure, when we haven't allowed for the entire scientific method to do it's work we do a disservice to society. We tend to believe what scientists tell us and if they are pretending it could result in horrible things. Imagine if a doctor prescribed a medicine that hadn't been tested because he decided it cured colds. If he's wrong the lack of testing could have harmful or even fatal effects on any number of people. Over time we have had many scientific misconceptions and will probably have many more but mistakes are greatly minimized when the scientific method is in place.

Comparative Primate Blog Post

In this post I will be comparing the diets of five primates; Lemurs, Spider Monkeys, Baboons, Gibbons and Chimpanzees.

Lemurs. Lemurs are only found in Madagascar and the Comores islands. They are arboreal.
They mostly live in dense rain-forest environments, with lots of trees and vegetation. Lemurs diet is mostly leaves and fruit and sometimes insects and bird eggs.


Spider Monkeys. Spider Monkeys live in rain-forests of south and central America. They can be found in numerous places such as Mexico, Bolivia, Brazil and even in the Andes mountains. They are arboreal and mostly live a top the tree canopy of lush green environments. Their diet consists of fruit, seeds young leaves and sometimes insects or bird eggs.


Baboons. Baboons live in Africa and parts of the middle east. They have a wide range of habitats usually not far from water sources and trees. The other important factor in their habitat appears to be cliffs or tall trees to hide in. Baboons diet consist of  mostly grass. they will also eat berries, seeds, insects, birds and fish.


Gibbons. Gibbons live in Aisia. They can be found in old growth rain-forests. They have a diet that consists of mostly fruit. They also eat leaves, some bark, flowers, insects, bird eggs and even small birds.


Chimpanzees. Chimpanzees live in Western Africa. They can be found in a variety of habitats including rain forests, swamps and grasslands.Their diet involves many things including leaves, fruit, soft plat shoots, termites, ants and small animals.

All five of these primate groups are omnivores. Each group eats more plants than animals but they all eat at least insects. All five primates can be found in rain-forests.Some vary in environment more than others but they all can be found in areas of dense vegetation. Their diets make sense to their environment. Rain-forests are filled with plants, fruit, insects. More so in vegetation and they all eat more plants than animals. If they ate exclusively fish or something not found in such abundance, their diets would not be as obviously affected by their environments. They are all intelligent species who get proteins which help with brain function.

Homology and analogy

A house cat and a human are homologous. They both share a very similar bone structure in the forearms. The radius bones in both cats and humans are homologous. Cats come from the feline family and are quadrupeds. They walk on all four limbs. They use their homologous forearms in very different ways than humans. Humans come from the ape family and are bipedal. They use their forearms for grabbing and carrying and not for walking or jumping like cats.

    

A duck and a duck billed platypus are analogous. They both have bills on their face and webbed feet. Other than these two similarities they share almost nothing in common. Ducks are birds and can fly. Duck billed platypus' can't fly and come from the ornithorhynchus family, they are also much better swimmers. Ducks have feathers and their counterpart platypus do not. Although they share analogous traits they are nothing alike.
  

Protein Synthesis

AGGTATTGTACCAACCGAACGTCTGAAGTGTGAGCTTGATCCGGCAGGT

Historical influences on Darwin

I believe that the person most influential on Darwin's theory of natural selection was Jean Baptiste Lamark.  Jean Baptiste Lamark hypothesized that a species changed over time. He believed that a species was not fixed into it's current state, rather that it could pass on traits to the next generation. This contribution in my opinion could have given Darwin all the fuel he needed to stoke the fires of his natural selection theory. Lamark believed that a giraffe that was regularly stretching his neck to reach leaves then it would pass that long neck trait on to it's offspring and over many generations of this, the giraffes would be born with longer necks.
Darwin's theory's are very similar to Lamark's in many ways. Darwin believed that a species would adapt to it's environment and over  time evolve into a new species. Survival of the fittest works very similarly to Lamarks ideas about the giraffes. The video used an example about humming birds evolving longer beaks to reach nectar in deeper flowers. The two examples are very close.
I believe although Lamark's ideas might have been invaluable to Darwin's theory's, it would not have been possible for Darwin to come to his same conclusions. Darwin observed life and nature. Life and nature are brimming with examples of natural selection. The instrumental factor in my opinion was observing it for himself. As a student of nature Darwin would have observed and been familiarized with many species of plants and animals. His trip to the gallopagus islands put him in a unique position to view many of the same or similar species on such a remote corner of the globe. His observation and having the remarkable brain power to understand what he saw would have given him a chance regardless of prior theories.
At the time the church was adamantly against ideas that contradicted their creationist beliefs. This made it difficult on Darwin who was faced with a tough decision. He was a proper man of high society and didn't want to go against the church but at the same time he was a man of science. His scientific research had led him to an important discovery that could get him ostracized. It was a difficult decision that did not come quickly and was not well received at first. Fortunately when someone puts out such a controversial theory contradictory to the church others will quickly try and falsify it. The good fortune in this case was they only further supported Darwin's claims.

 http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/_0/history_09