Andes Mountains Or The Amazon River: Article Analysis

Speciation is the process by which new species are formed. Sometimes, geographical isolation plays a part like it did in the Galapagos islands. Other times, despite many factors influencing speciation, it doesn't occur even after millions of years. This article was on geographical isolation and how it can influence speciation, or in the case of the island lizards, on why speciation sometimes doesn't occur.

     Napoleon Chagnon has spent about 60 months since 1964 studying the ‘foot people’ of the Amazon Basin known as the Yanomamo. In his ethnography, Yanomamo, he describes all of the events of his stay in the Venezuelan jungle. He describes the “hideous” appearance of the Yanomamo men when first meeting them, and their never-ending demands for Chagnon’s foreign goods, including his food. There are many issues that arise when considering Chagnon’s Yanomamo study. The withholding of genealogical information by the tribesmen, and how Chagnon was able to obtain his information is an interesting and significant aspect of this study. Why did Chagnon feel that this genealogical information was

In the Heart of the Andes’ painting by Robert Seldon Duncanson, an immensely deceptive illusion is cultivated. This 1871 naturalistic landscape entices the viewer’s senses and lends itself to being part of the “beautiful” which is _____. This painting is a rendition of an earlier work done by Frederic Church in 1859. The formal qualities present in Heart of the Andes appear to fabricate an amicable symbiotic relationship between man and nature with motifs of God acting to legitimize human fallibility.

The geography of Bolivia is unique among the nations of South America. Bolivia is one of two landlocked countries on the continent (the other being Paraguay), and Bolivia is more urban (67%) than rural (23%). The main features of Bolivia's geography include the Altiplano, a highland plateau of the Andes, and Lake Titicaca, the highest navigable lake on Earth, which is shared with Peru.

The concept or idea that species change and evolve into new and different species was described and was an established concept in Darwin's day this was described as descent with modification. The Concept of descent with modification has major evidence in support, in fact we no longer refer to the this adaption as descent with modification, rather it is now called biological evolution.

Traveling deep into the Amazon rainforest, Napoleon Chagnon, lived amongst the Yanomamӧ tribes that occupied the land on the border of Brazil and Venezuela. In doing so he was able to write an ethnography about his observations and interpretations of the culture and human behaviors of the Yanomamӧ people. From his studies, Chagnon found that the Yanomamӧ have always been one of the most violent culture, who are always living in chronic warfare, often over women, so they can maximize their reproductive success and be honorable in their society. I agree with Chagnon in a sense, but also believe the Yanomamӧ are violent with reason and are less violent than industrialized nations, who have contributed to their increase in violence.

Darwin’s observations from the islands made him want to come up with some explanation to why this occurred. He began to do research of each the species that had lived on these islands and observe all of the

These are Darwin’s insights from the Voyage of the Beagle. Extinct species most closely resemble living species in the same area. This suggests that present forms evolved from now extinct forms. Many plants and animals on a given continent are distinctive and more similar to each other than to those on other continents. This suggests that organism in different areas have different histories. Species on oceanic islands most closely resemble those on the nearest continent. This suggests that the ancestors of these island species evolved on the mainland, and then later colonized the islands. Animals on oceanic islands are often endemic and show relatedness to one another. This suggest that these closely-related species evolved after their mainland ancestors reached the islands. Natural selection is a physical process with no forethought and is not “trying” to produce evolutionary change of a specific kind. Each step in an evolutionary sequence must be adaptive and favored by natural selection. It acts on individual organisms and only populations can evolve. The genetic make-up of an existing organism can’t change; only the genetic make-up of future populations can

Manaus is the capital of the state of Amazonas in the north of Brazil, there are beautiful beaches, a protected forest reserve (Amazon Forest), where there is the greatest biodiversity of animals and plants in the world, and also one of the main rivers of the world, Rio Amazonas. But because it is a place of difficult access, the country forgets a little of this beautiful sanctuary, leaving the drift for illegal deforestation and traffic of beautiful wild animals, besides extraction of ore, and diminution of territory, of the native people of the country. But those who go to this place are charmed by the natural beauty that this place offers you, Beautiful nature, and the people and their culture are very

This article certainly caught my eye. Can you imagine that in the deepest jungle in the Peruvian Amazon there is a percolating, roiling, boiling river? The waters in this river can reach a temperature of up to 200 degrees Fahrenheit and all around it is lush vegetation and forest. The locals living here believed that the river is sacred and that these particularly hot water had healing powers and shamans used it along with their medicine.

The Amazon is not only the last remaining rainforest in the World but is also one of the most important biomes for global human-well being (Bonan, 2008; Fearnside, 2008). The biome belongs to nine countries, including Ecuador (Reference). The Ecuadorian Amazon region has been considered as one of the most well preserved areas in the Western Hemisphere (Bass et al., 2010; Finer et al., 2008; Finer et al., 2009; Larrea et al., 2012). In particular the South-Central area (i.e. Yasuní National Park), which is situated in an extraordinary location along the Equator where the Andes and the Amazon meet, is one of the leading biodiversity hotspots in the World (Bass et al., 2010).

In the Amazon Basin, an amazing plant called Ayahuasca, which is an entheogenic brew made out of Banisteriopsis caapi vine, and often in combination with various other plants. The word "Ayahuasca", from the Quechua language, means "vine of the souls". [1] For centuries, Amazonian shamans have used Ayahuasca as a window into the soul. The main reason it can change human brain and consciousness is that the plant contains a substance called DMT. N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) is an illegal, psychedelic tryptamine compound found in the human body and at least 60 species of plants worldwide. [2] Rick Strassman described it as “the first endogenous human psychedelic” in his book DMT: The Spirit Molecule. [3] And in an interview in 2011, he said

‘Climate, tectonics and the morphology of the Andes’ (2001) reports on Montgomery, Balco and Willett’s study of the Andes which investigates whether and how climate patterns influence the morphology of the Andes. It begins by acknowledging that the type and location of plate boundaries determines their presence or absence. The issue is whether that alone determines the evolution of individual mountain systems. They conclude that it is a combination of tectonics and climate that influences the evolution of individual mountain systems, but that different climatic factors causing erosion in different locations are of ‘first order importance’ in the geomorphology of mountains. This paper is significant because it is the first to address

The distribution of plants and animals in the Galapagos was puzzling to Darwin; where did these species originate from? Why don’t the same species appear in similar environments? Many species only lived on the Galapagos -- and sometimes, only one certain island. How did these species end up there? There were species on the Galapagos such as insects and reptiles that resembled some species in South America, but were also different in very slight ways. Darwin began to wonder if species would travel to the Galapagos, and then adapt to their new environments over time. If two species came from a common ancestor, it would make sense for them to live together. For example, Darwin's’ finches he discovered on the Galapagos had differently sized beaks. These beaks would differ in size according to the area these birds were in -- “their appearance and behavior quickly adapted to this closed and rapidly changing environment.”

As history progresses, many new changes and revelations come up that makes us rethink how we think things. Although the present theory of evolution is widely regarded to be an acceptable theory, will this change in the future as we come across new evidence? And what could the new theory of how humans came to be actually be?