A short term adaptation for heat is sweating. When you sweat, your body is telling you you need to cool down. It is important to replenish the water and electrolytes your body is loosing.
A facultative adaptation is skin tone. Darker skin absorbs the heat, while light skin reflects the heat. This explains why wearing dark colors causes you to feel hotter than if you wear light colors.
A developmental adaptation is bipedalism. We've adapted from standing on four legs to two legs partially because when on two legs less of our body is hit by sunlight than when standing on four legs.
A cultural adaptation to heat is the invention of air conditioning. This is one of the most liked inventions. Living in California, I know how terrible it is when the air conditioning is broken.
When we study heat on human variation we learn more on how to adapt to our environment. We continue to learn how to avoid harsh conditions or how to treat problems relating to heat stress on our bodies. We also continue to learn new problems and new technology to help us grow in our environment.
You can't really use race to understand the variations of adaptations considering race isn't based on skin color. It is based on cultural values and common history. Environmental influences on adaptations show how people came to be who they are today.
I think that this is so facinating to know for a Southern Californian. It is so amazing how our body has adapted over the years to live in such varying climates. I like the way you defined race. Normally race is associated with skin color to someone who doesn't understand the word.
ReplyDeleteGood descriptions of heat stress and the problems that can arise from this.
ReplyDeleteGood job on your short term, developmental and cultural adaptations, particularly highlighting the possible adaptive heat benefits of bipedalism. Skin color is actually an adaptive response to solar radiation, not to heat. There may be a secondary benefit to darker skin, but tanning occurs in response to solar radiation, not heat. If you walk into a sauna, you don't respond by tanning, correct?
Good discussion on the benefits of the adaptive approach.
" You can't really use race to understand the variations of adaptations considering race isn't based on skin color."
No, actually, race is predominantly based upon external superficial features, including skin color. Perhaps you are confusing race with ethnicity, which is an entirely different concept? That is the problem with race, that it is based upon how we view people, not upon their biology. Race is a social construct and as such cannot be used to understand human variation which is based in biology.
I totally forgot about how bipedalism was an adaptation formed because of the heat so I am glad that I saw that here in your post. Nice additional information added in with the temperature of heat strokes, I also did not know that! Your post was well formed and easy to find the specific points. Good Job!
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