Ability to live in extreme hot and cold places

The interest in the human body physiological capacity to adapt to extreme heat and cold conditions has
increased enormously in the last few decades because of global warming and the consequent changing
temperatures. The human body has multiple thermoregulatory mechanisms to counter the external
extreme temperatures whose main objective is to keep temperature homeostasis within normal values.
As exposure time to these stressful conditions increases and the external temperature becomes even
more extreme, the body systems start adapting to its environment progressively. All of the adaptations,
at the beginning of the exposure somewhat irrelevant, may become very important since they can affect
all of the body systems in a negative manner and finally, compromise life. An example of a genetic
solution to an environmental stress is our ability to produce sweat as an aid in cooling our bodies in hot
environments.  It is not surprising that we have this capability because our immediate pre-human
ancestors were tropical animals.

Changes in skin and eye colors

Variations in human skin color are adaptive traits that correlate closely with geography and the sun’s
ultraviolet (UV) radiation. As early humans moved into hot, open environments in search of food and
water, one big challenge was keeping cool. The adaptation that was favored involved an increase in the
number of sweat glands on the skin while at the same time reducing the amount of body hair. With less
hair, perspiration could evaporate more easily and cool the body more efficiently. But this less-hairy skin
was a problem because it was exposed to a very strong sun, especially in lands near the equator. Since
strong sun exposure damages the body, the solution was to evolve skin that was permanently dark so as
to protect against the sun’s more damaging rays.

Resistance to diseases

A number of human disease alleles have been associated with a fitness advantage under certain
circumstances. In such cases, the disease allele can become more common than in the absence of the
fitness advantage. Many examples are associated with resistance to infection. The classic example is
mutations in HBB, which in heterozygous form confer resistance to malaria but as homozygotes cause
sickle-cell anemia. Resistance to malaria is also associated with mutations that cause G6PD deficiency,
thalassemia (HBA and HBB) and other erythrocyte defects (SLC4A1 and DARC) (Kwiatkowski, 2005).
Because many other loci have been associated with resistance to malaria (Driss et al., 2011), the strong
selective pressure for malaria resistance may have influenced other, as yet unknown, disease alleles.

More genetic variations

Genetic change in response to environmental stresses usually takes many generations to become
widespread in a population.  Fortunately, we also have other ways of responding more quickly as
individuals during our own lifetime.  The word adjustments is used here to refer to these shorter term
physiological changes that are not inheritable.  The word adaptations is reserved for inheritable genetic
changes developed in a population over a long period of time.

Differences in sizes of body parts

Because body size influences so many aspects of organismal biology, the quest for plausible body mass
estimates in the fossil record of human evolution is an important enterprise. Recent studies have
reported that adaptation to extreme body types produces after effects on judgments of body normality.
This effect suggests that adaptation could constitute an experimental model on body image.
Alternatively, adaptation could affect perception of test stimuli, which should produce the same after
effects for judgments about participant’s own body or someone else’s body.

Sources:

https://clinmedjournals.org/articles/iacph/international-archives-of-clinical-physiology-iacph-1-001.php

https://www2.palomar.edu/anthro/adapt/adapt_1.htm

https://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/genetics/human-skin-color-variation/modern-human-diversity-
skin-color

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212066113000124