Human Variation and Race Blog.

1.) Heat increases your heart rate, which causes your blood vessels to dilate, which causes blood flow to decrease going to your heart and pulmonary veins, causing your body to shut down and faint from lack of oxygen if not taken care of right away. It can also cause heat rash, heat exhaustion, and excessive amounts of sweating which can also reduce body moisture.

2.) Short term effects of heat-Heat exhaustion ( a heat related illness that happens when one has been in high temperatures for long periods of time and has become dehydrated; two types- water depletion and salt depletion.)

   

Falculative adaptions of heat- Skin tone- darker skin tone attracts heat easier than a lighter color skin does. This can be seen by monitoring the production of melatonin and the absorption of vitamin D.

Developmental adaptions of heat- Bipedalism- walking on two feet instead of four reduces the amount of skin that has to touch the hot ground, which also reduces the body temperature.

Cultural adaptions of heat- Living near large parts of water, so as to stay hydrated easier.

3.) By studying human variation this way, it essentially removes any and all essences of 'race' from the equation. It brings things to a more non-biased and scientific point of view. It allows us to look at the human species as being one, and not separating and segregating the different variations that humans come as.

4.) Using race to study the adaption of heat in humans would explain why humans with darker skin tones live in parts of the world where heat is an immenent factor in their lives (i.e. the peoples in Africa) and why lighter skin tones can survive in colder weathers (i.e. the peoples in upper northern Europe, such as Iceland, Greenland, Norway, Russia, Ireland, and Great Britian.) However, studying human variations as opposed to studying race allows for a more factual, non-biased way to explain how humans have adapted to the environment.