Assignment 7

HEAT and the BODY

1. Heat affects the human body greatly. Humans maintain a stable body temperature and warm-blooded creatures. We have evolved and adapted to heat in a number of ways, like sweating and skin color. Exposing our bodies to extreme amounts of heat can put us in danger. Not drinking water, long periods of exposure to heat, and even excessive exercise can cause a heat stroke or heat exhaustion and ultimately lead to death.

2. a) Sweating is a short term adaption to heat. Sweating is the body's way of getting rid of heat by producing water to our skin which then is evaporated, taking heat with it.

   b) A facultative adaption to heat would be skin color. In hotter climates, the skin would tend to be darker than that of a cooler climate. Darker skin would reduce the amount of radiation the body received and absorb the heat. Places like Africa, Brazil and even the Middle East, we would see darker skin color because there's more sun while in Canada, Russia, and Alaska, we would see lighter skin color.

   c) A developmental adaption to heat would be the shape and size of our bodies and even bipedalism. Taller, slimmer people be found more in hotter areas. They would have lesser surface area for the sun to hit. Bipedalism also did this for our ancestors as well. To escape the heat of Africa, evolution allowed us to stand upright and evade heat better.

   d) A cultural adaption to heat would be the use of air conditioning or sunscreen. Air conditioning is the reason why people can live in Southern California. Before air conditioning, popular cities lied in the East, like New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago. Cities like Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Houston can give credit to becoming popular because of air conditioning. Sunscreen is used to protect our bodies from the heat as well. Using sunscreen reduces radiation our bodies come in contact with and allows us to go to the beach more than we should.

3. Studying the way heat effects our body is useful. By knowing how heat effects us, we can make things like air conditioning and sunscreen to prevent dying from it. Humans are ingenious. The temperature reaches 110F outside, we avoid it with our creations, like buildings and fans.

4. Race can only be used to understand facultative adaption because it's the only adaption it pertains to. Really, race can't even be used. Race is more to describe where someone comes from, not the color of skin. Environmental variations helps people understand this concept. Being dark skinned is just a way to reduce the exposure of heat as would sweating smaller droplets to evaporate faster is a way of cooling for some people.