Human Variation

1. While many people enjoy going to the mountains to spend a day in the snow but the high altitude can cause many problems. The father above sea level we get the lower the air pressure gets and this makes it harder for the oxygen that is taken in to pass through the lungs membrane get into our blood. This condition is known as hypoxia and it causes people to lose the ability to do simple tasks as well as causing vomiting and distorted vision among other symptoms. In extreme cases it causes bleeding in the lungs and fluid around the brain and if the person does not get back to an area with normal air pressure within a few days in can result in death.

2.
A) Short term adaptation:
A short term adaptation that we make to adapt to being in higher altitude is faster breathing and heart rate. The heart needs to pump faster to try and compensate for the lack of oxygen that is being taken in and making to the blood cells.





B) Facultative adaptation:
When a person spends a long period of time at a high altitude the body starts to adapt by producing more red blood cells and capillaries, very thin blood vessels, to help carry more oxygen to the body. The lungs also expand to help with osmosis of oxygen and carbon dioxide.



C) Developmental adaptations:
After thousands of years of living at a high altitude changes to the DNA to the DNA of the people living there starts to change. A change that has been made with the Indians that live in the mountains of Peru and Bolivia is that they produce more hemoglobin in their blood which helps oxygen travel through the body.



D) Cultural adaptations:
Many people love to climb mountains as a hobby but due to the higher altitudes they have a hard time getting the oxygen they need. To help with this the hikers will bringing oxygen tanks with them to help them breath as they travel to higher altitudes.



3. By studying the variation in humans in different altitudes we can learn more about how our bodies adapt to different situations and possibly find solutions to altitude sickness. It also could help us to learn about the process of DNA changing to help people live in certain areas.

4. I do not think that race can be used to understand the adaptations discussed above because regardless of your race you will adapt to the area you are living. There could be a group of lighter skinned people and a group of darker skinned people that live in the same area and after a long history of living in a certain area, such as an area with high altitude, they will both adapt to living there. Environmental variation is a better way to understand human variation because the environment that people live in plays a bigger role on the adaptations that are made with our bodies as well as adaption made consciously by humans than race does.