Tuesday, April 11, 2017

Ancestral Climates May Have Shaped Your Nose



At Pennsylvania State University, a team of scientists have uncovered more evidence on the relationship between the present nose and the climates of where our ancestors have lived in. An experiment was done my measuring the height, the width, and skin pigmentation of men and women whose ancestors that were born in corresponded regions. The experiment has proven that the width and height of the nostril may vary depending the region one lives in, such as people whose ancestors that lived in warm and humid areas will have a wider noses. However, people whose ancestors that lived in cold and dry regions of the world would have nostrils that are narrowed. In addition, natural selection may act on the shape of the nostril due to the climate of the region favoring the structure of the nose. Other contributors, such as inheritable traits and genetic variation can play a role in demonstrating the shape of the nose.



New York Times Here
WebMD Here

3 comments:

  1. This is an interesting experiment, I wonder what lead these researchers to decide to look into this topic. Before reading this article I did not think that environment played as significant as a role as it did on to a physical feature such as nose size and shape. I believe it is interesting to see the different ways natural selection can affect phenotypic features.

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  2. I never would have guessed that nostril size and shape would contribute to ancestral habitations. I'm curious to understand the connections between the nose and the environment. Maybe it has something to do with the connection of the atmosphere when it comes to weather. Colder regions and dryer air must be correlated with the smaller nose, and I'm very interested on finding out why.

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  3. I would not have thought that the shape of my nose could potentially tell me where my ancestors came from. However, as I think about it, it does make since since we adapt to our environments. This could also be said about skin color and eye shape so nose shape shouldn't be any different.

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