Human Variation & Race Blog

1)      High altitudes, like in high mountains, have two major kinds of environmental stress. There are extreme temperature changes from ranging from hot in days to freezing in night.  Also the air pressure is lower. At high altitudes, the lower air pressure makes it more difficult for oxygen to enter our vascular systems.  The result is hypoxia, or oxygen deprivation.  Hypoxia usually begins with the inability to do normal physical activities, such as climbing a short flight of stairs without fatigue.  Other early symptoms of "high altitude sickness" include a lack of appetite, distorted vision, and difficulty with memorizing and thinking clearly.  In serious cases, pneumonia-like symptoms and an abnormal accumulation of fluid around the brain develop, leading to death within a few days if there is not a return to normal air pressure levels.  There is also an increased risk of heart failure due to the added stress placed on the lungs, heart, and arteries at high altitudes.

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2)      People born at lower altitudes and high-altitudes natives differ in how they adapt to hypoxia. When people born at low elevations travel to higher ones, the process of acclimatization begins within a day or two increasing in respiration rate, heart rate, and production of red blood cells. In high-altitudes natives acclimatization occurs during growth and development. This type of acclimatization is found only in people who grow up in high-altitude areas, not moved there as adults. Compared to populations at lower elevations, lifelong residents of high altitude grow some-what more slowly and mature later. Also people from high-altitudes have larger chest size, associated, in turn, with greater lung volume and larger heart. Also people born at high altitudes are more efficient than migrants at diffusing oxygen from blood to body tissues.

3)      I believe the benefits are to know each other better. People think we are different because of the different skin color or different body size. But by studying this, we can learn how we became different in the first place and also learn that we are no different than any other people.

4)      By using race to understand the variation of the adaptations, in my opinion, you cannot go anywhere near to understand the variation of the adaptations. It is better way to understand human variation by environmental influences on adaptation because it is more clear and exact. It is more detailed since it gives what, why, when, where, and how to answer all the questions precisely. Also it gives evidence to these adaptations.