Hominids

This week we learned about hominids.  A hominid is one of the humans closest ancestors.  The hominid walked upright.  There were many skulls found that date back to 4 million years old. The homo erectus has a big brain.  The body is also big.  The hominids are unlike monkeys because their big toe is close to there other toes just like humans.  Monkeys have a toe that is arched out from the others.  This is to help them climb trees.  Hominids are related to human, orangoutangs, gorillas, and monkey's.  

Evolution and populations

This week we learned about adaptions, population, and evolution. Evolution happens over time. It is the changing of species. We evoloved from apes. Things that come from evolution is adaptations, mutations,natural selections, and selective breeding.

Selective breeding- if the organim is best suited in the environment, then they will survive and reproduce. If the organism doesn't suit in the environment, they will die and not reproduce. If the population changes to quickly, then the organisms can't adapt and will die out.

Mutations-random change in the genes

Adaptations-the changes in physical or behavior traits in response to environment that occurs over time

Selective breeding- changes that are artificial that breed two organisms to make a better one

Population can change in many ways. There could be predators that attack the prey and effect the population. Also, environments can change the population. Disease can effect population too. If animals reproduce it will higher the population. When the predators population goes up, the prey go down. When prey population goes up the predator goes down.

Ugenics

Ugenics is the study of improving the human species or human population. Ugenics puts down or discourages the undesirable. It trys to stop people from having defective children that are undesirable.

Adaptation and Natural Selections

This week in science we did three simulations to show examples of population in habitats. This also taught us about adaptations. The simulations tought us how the creatures in our simulation adapted to different environments. This is possible if a blue starburst had a baby with a brown starburst. The offspring might be heterozygous. This means that it might be able to live in purple environment as well as a blue environment. We also learned about predators and prey in one of our simulations. If the prey camoflauges with its background then its population will go up. This is because the predator won't be able to see them and eat them least. If the prey doesn't camoflauge with its environment, the predator will see them and eat them more. Then their population will go down. Blending in with your environment is another adaptation. Our class said that adaptation can be "adapted" over time.