Heat can have an environmental stress that negatively impacts the survival of humans by disturbing homeostasis.
The importance of homeostasis cannot be over-stressed, as it allows enzymes to be fined-tuned to a particular set of conditions, and so to operate more efficiently.
One of the most important examples of homeostasis is the regulation of body temperature.
With heat, there can be a significant impact to the human body like heat strokes.
Ways in which humans have adapted to this stress is sweat, when the body starts to sweat, this means that the body is reacting to the heat and therefore produces sweat which tries to cool down the body.
A facultative adaptation to heat is skin tone, with darker skin tone you can absorb the heat, and with a lighter skin tone you reflect the heat.
A developmental adaptation to heat in humans is body size as well as the types of clothing humans wear and the use of fans or air conditioning.
An example of cultural adaption in humans is sunblock. Sunblock has all the substance that can reduce exposure that can burn the skin.
The benefits of studying human variation from this perspective across environmental clines because we can learn how the body acts in its stage of trying to cool down and therefore find ways to put less stress on the body.
You mention that heat stress negatively impacts homeostasis but you don't explain how. I need you to take the discussion from heat through the important steps that lead to loss of homeostasis.
ReplyDeleteOkay on sweating for short term. Skin tone is primarily a solar radiation adaptation, not for heat. How else can a body adapt facultatively to heat? I agree that body shape/size helps with heat, but how, specifically? Clothing/fans/airconditioning are actually cultural adaptation.
A little short on the final analysis. What about this issue of race? Images?