Powerful Future of Paleoanthropology
Grade 8
Presentation
No video provided
Problem
Earth is currently changing at an extremly fast rate, our climate is warming and our tectonic plates are shifting. In a few hundred of millions of years to a billion years earth will no longer resemble today. This means the earth shift into a super continent and our climate might be super warm with high levels of acid and many volcanoes. To survive this type of geographic change us humans and other animals must go through a process called evolution, which means our genes and physical apperances will change.
My question what will human bones look like in the future? And what will human teeth look like in a few centuries?
Method
Due to the fact that my project is a resarch project, I will need to collect lots of information from different types of trustable websites, and scientest. Some websites which I will use are goverement, universitys, and bussinese that study evolution. Examples of websites that are trustable and safe to use for this project is: Britanica, Stanford Encloypdia, National Instiution of Health, University of Victoria, and University of Alberta. For the data that I am collecting I will be using the units million of years and hundreds of years. Information I would like to collect is: genetic information of the first humans, what the first humans looked like, what the enviroment was like when the first humans appeared.
I predict that humans in a few centuries will have much stronger bones, due to the high intake of calcium, protein, and protein alternatives. As the amount of protein and calcium a person eats really affects there bone health. I believe human biological teeth will get stronger, but due to the high amount of sugar many people eat, and the rising growth of sugar human teeth will get weaker.
Research
For my project I am focusing on evolution, I belive that evolution is an extremly important topic for society, because we need to understand our pass and understand how its possible for us homo sapiens to survive in the future when the climate and the tectonic plates will change. My specific topic is how will homo sapiens change genetically and physically in the future? And will other animals genes and apperance change? I know a lot about humans and ape like creatures past and how we evoluted from apes to homo sapiens, but I dont know much about how humans will change in the future. I know that humans genes will change due to the enviroment, and from disease. And I know that we are going through a major climate change, and the tectonic plates in our Earth will change after a few million to billion years which will most impact us and our genes. What I'm missing is how humans genetics will change due to the climate annd the shifting of our tectonic plates. And I also need to understand or predict if any future species will become stronger then humans/ or if we get invaded by other species because this could alter humans and our genetics. My resarch will be answer the missing piece by looking at different types of speices and how they've developed.
-there is a scientific group called homo, and the term homo is latin word meaning human (Vocabulary.com)
-homos are usally large intelligent, hairless, ape
-between 5 to 7 million years apelike creatures with the ability to walk we're identifyed in Africa (New York TImes)
-Homo Habilis we're found between 2.4 million years ago to 1.4 million years ago (New York Times)
-the first creatrues that had similar genetic information as humans are called Homo Habilis (History Chanel)
-the Homo Habilis spread to the contients Europe and Asia (New York Times)
-most Homo Habilis died due to diease from the Homo Sapiens (Modern Day Humans), inbreeding, and climate change and eventually there was only the Homo Sapiens left (New York Times)
-some Homo Sapiens began to move out of Africa while others stayed in Africa (New York Times)
-the homo Sapiens appeared 300,000 years ago
-there was a group called Neanthanderals, and they are modern day humans closets relative (Natural History Museum)
-the Neanthanderals most likely shared the same ansector as modern day humans due to similar fossil and genes (National History Museum)
-the Neanthanderals and Modern day Humans both lived in Europe together for over 6000 years, so its belived that they might have inbred (National instinution of Health)
-our ancestors most likely ate plants, had smaller brains, and shorters legs, but then a new speices called Homo Erectus began to evolute (Wired UK)
-Homo Erectus had bigger brains, and Scientest think Homo Erectus ate meat, and there bones resembled modern day humans (Wired UK)
-Scientest belived that how humans evoluted is closely connected to our diet of meat (Wired UK)
-Scientest belived that the amount of protein in meat, and the increase of meat in our diet is the reason why our brains got bigger, because our brain needs lots of energy to function (Wired UK)
Data
-humans are eating foods that are much higher in protein and there also eating more meat which could lead humans in the future to have stronger bones
-most humans are getting a lot of nutrients in there daily diet which will lead humans to get taller and taller since the stronger our bones is the taller we will get
-diet can efect our teeth, so if we eat lots of jello our teeth wouldn't develop to become super strong, but if we eat food that is harder to chew our teeth will become stronger
-paleoanthroplogist who are studying teeth found that our ansectors have lots of traces of plants, and vegetables in there teeth
-scientest found an ape like creture that dates back 4.2 million years ago called Lucy, and Lucy speices switched from forest food to savanah foods
-teeth from more recent homo groups, show and tell us more because they arent as worn down
-the earliest speices of homos had the biggest teeth, and when comparing it to homo sapiens the homo sapien teeth look very small
-bones from previous groups are much smaller then homo sapiens
Conclusion
After a lot of in depth research about human evolution, humans bones and teeth are effected by some major variables. Some of the major variable we must consider about future humans bones and teeth is the high amount of calcium, protein, vitamin d and k in our diet. Over the past few decades humans have began to eat more protein and calcium. Calcium helps our body build and maintain strong bones, and its commonley found in diary and diary products. And the demand for diary continues to increase, and its becoming more and more accesssible which leads for people to get higher amounts of calcium in there diet. Since the 2000s reports state that diary sales have been increasing. This means that bones in the future will be taller. But skeletons of the neanderthals show that the homo sapiens bones are bigger in height, but the neanderthals have larger framers there nose,joints, ribe cages, hip joints, and ankles are all much bigger then humans. And skeletons of older groups such as homo erectus have much smaller bones and smaller frames.
Previous homo groups teeth were found in the continent of africa. And the teeth from the previous homo groups such as the homo erectus are much bigger then homo sapiens. But the homo erectus teeth are smaller then the earliest homo groups. The remains from the homo habilis teeth, show that the homo habilis teeth are the biggest in size, and the reason why the homo habilis are believed to have the biggest teeth is because they had smaller molars.
Calcium intake can also help strengthen our teeth, and it protects our teeth. But calicum doesn't affect the size of our teeth, and eatings lots of calcium doesn' mean that our teeth will get bigger nor smaller. There is tons of technology, and products that can affect our teeth both in negative and positive ways. Since these things are not biological, this means that it will not affect our descendents, and they will not get passed down. But due to the high amounts of unbiological technology and foods eatten it will affect our teeth. When looking at past homo groups teeth, there is some visible decay in the tooth, but now people will fill there teeth with porcealin, gold, and silver so our teeth will not resemble other homo groups.
Scientest state that human teeth are going to get smaller and our jaws wont stick our anymore because different gadjets are avilable now, examples of gadjets aviliable now for humans to use when eating foods is: spoons, knife, fork. And there is a physical difference between people who eat with spoons, knifes, forks and people who eat mainly with there mouth and jaw. Dentist say that eating hard foods with your jaw will make your tooth become stronger, but it can also lead to your teeth needing to make physical adjustments (such as becoming bigger) to adjust to a certain diet. But eating food with gadjets lead to your teeth becoming weaker as your teeth wont need to do as much work, and smaller.
Scientest have predicted that by 2050 humans will be eating 160 percent more meat, and meat plays a big role in our teeth. Humans are carbivores, which means we eat both meat and vegetables. Animals whom mostly eat vegetables such as horses have softer teeth, since vegetables are easier to chew on, while animals whom mostly eat meat have very sharp teeth. And the high levels of meat consumptions could make our teeth sharper. Currently we have some teeth in the middle of our mouthes, which are sharper then others and when eating food most people tend to eat food with those teeth. And in the future scientest predict that most of our teeth will resemble fangs.
Citations
For my resarch I have put all of the links that I used in my resarch beside it.
-wired uk
-national institution of health
-national history museum
-New York Times
-Modern day Humans
-History Chanel
-Vocabulary.com
-britannica
-nih.goverment
-australian musem
-smithonian magazine
-John Hopkins Medicine
-Smithonian Human Origin
-Mayo clinic
-Harvard Chan School Of Public Health
-Stanford Medicine
Acknowledgement
I used a lot of websites for my resarch and they are all stated beside the resarch. And I also got some help from my teacher.