1. I have selected cold.
This environmental stress can be deadly for humans. Humans need to maintain a certain body temperature to survive, generally 98.6F. It can fluctuate to one degree depending on the individual. Though, extreme cold can drop the human’s body temperature, which can result in hypothermia. Once the body temperature drops to 94F, it can become very dangerous, especially because once the temperature reaches 94f, the human body temperature drops even more rapidly.
2.
· Short term adaptation to the cold:
Humans start shivering. Shivering causes the muscles of the human’s body to function, which in short increases temporarily the body heat as a means to deal with the cold.
· Facultative adaptation:
Vasoconstriction is “the narrowing of blood vessels to reduce blood flow to the skin. It is an involuntary response to cold and reduces heat loss at the skin’s surface” (textbook).
· Developmental adaptation: because humans living in the cold have the tendency to eat more fat food in order to cope with the cold, the “shape of these human’ bodies will have the tendency to be more round and squat” (assignment).
· Cultural adaptation:
There are many ways humans can deal with the cold. They can wear warmer cloth, use the heater or make a nice fire indoors. Some cultures also drink strong alcohol as a way to increase temporarily body heat.
3. There are many benefits in studying human variation. First, we understand better the use of the word “race”, which has more to do with human variation than just the color of the skin or nationalities. Second, this information can also be useful to anyone who would like to move to a very cold region. The individual would now know what to expect or how to cope with the cold or people that live in such cold areas.
4. The word “race” has undergone many different meanings. In this specific example though, race would stand for any population who lives in very cold territories. There are certain patterns among populations that are directly linked to environmental stress. Instead of assimilating the word “race” with skin color or nationalities, people should understand the biological adaptations as a whole, which are really related to the environment.
