Homeostasis, an animal's maintenance of certain internal

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Homeostasis, an animal's maintenance of certain internal variables within an acceptable range, particularly in extreme physical environments, has long interested biologists. The desert rat and the camel in the most water-deprived environments, and marine vertebrates in an all-water environment, encounter the same regulatory problem: maintaining adequate internal fluid balance.

For desert rats and camels, the problem is conservation of water in an environment where standing water is nonexistent, temperature is high, and humidity is low. Despite these handicaps, desert rats are able to maintain the osmotic pressure of their blood, as well as their total body-water content, at approximately the same levels as other rats. {{One countermeasure is behavioral: these rats stay in burrows during the hot part of the day, thus avoiding loss of fluid through panting or sweating, which are regulatory mechanisms for maintaining internal body temperature by evaporative cooling.}} Also, desert rat's kidneys can excrete a urine having twice as high a salt content as sea water.

Camels, on the other hand, rely more on simple endurance. They cannot store water, and their reliance on an entirely unexceptional kidney results in a rate of water loss through renal function significantly higher than that of desert rats. As a result, camels must tolerate losses in body water of up to thirty percent of their body weight. {{Nevertheless, camels do rely on a special mechanism to keep water loss within a tolerable range: by seating and panting only when their body temperature exceeds that which would kill a human, they conserve internal water.}}

Marine vertebrates experience difficulty with their water balance because though there is no shortage of seawater to drink, they must drink a lot of it to maintain their internal fluid balance. But the excess salts from the seawater must be discharged somehow, and the kidneys of most marine vertebrates are unable to excrete a urine in which the salts are more concentrated than in seawater. Most of these animals have special salt-secreting organs outside the kidney that enable them to eliminate excess salt

I have some difficulty in understanding the meaning (or use of some sentence). Can any one explain:

1) why the countermeasure is mentioned and how it is realted to previous 2 sentences of the paragraph?: (One countermeasure is behavioral: these rats stay in burrows during the hot part of the day, thus avoiding loss of fluid through panting or sweating, which are regulatory mechanisms for maintaining internal body temperature by evaporative cooling)

2) Why does the author use 'NEVERTHELESS' and how its connected with the immediate preceeding sentence

3) Which of the following most accurately states the purpose of the passage?
(A) To compare two different approaches to the study of homeostasis
(B) To summarize the findings of several studies regarding organisms’ maintenance of internal variables in extreme environments
(C) To argue for a particular hypothesis regarding various organisms’ conservation of water in desert environments
(D) To cite examples of how homeostasis is achieved by various organisms
(E) To defend a new theory regarding the maintenance of adequate fluid balance
Last edited by patanjali.purpose on Sun Nov 27, 2011 7:12 am, edited 1 time in total.

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by mankey » Sat Nov 26, 2011 4:47 am
IMO for 3), answer is C).

What is the OA?

Thanks.

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by patanjali.purpose » Sun Nov 27, 2011 7:13 am
mankey wrote:IMO for 3), answer is C).

What is the OA?

Thanks.
I am sorry that's not OA.

Why do not you try 1 & 2 as well.

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by Neo Anderson » Sun Nov 27, 2011 12:23 pm
1) why the countermeasure is mentioned and how it is realted to previous 2 sentences of the paragraph?: (One countermeasure is behavioral: these rats stay in burrows during the hot part of the day, thus avoiding loss of fluid through panting or sweating, which are regulatory mechanisms for maintaining internal body temperature by evaporative cooling)
IMO, The mentioned 'behavioral' countermeasure adds on to the other countermeasure which is 'anatomical' (that is: related to the bodily difference with respect to the other rats). for the rat to be able to fight against the extremely adverse conditions'

2) Why does the author use 'NEVERTHELESS' and how its connected with the immediate preceeding sentence IMO, the author here uses 'NEVERTHELESS' to emphasise that 'camel has to undergo the loss of water upto 1/3 of its weight, at the same time ,while this true, there also is a mechanism in camels which moves there threshold of panting and sweating to levels much higher than humans

3) Which of the following most accurately states the purpose of the passage?
(A) To compare two different approaches to the study of homeostasis
(B) To summarize the findings of several studies regarding organisms’ maintenance of internal variables in extreme environments
(C) To argue for a particular hypothesis regarding various organisms’ conservation of water in desert environments
(D) To cite examples of how homeostasis is achieved by various organisms
(E) To defend a new theory regarding the maintenance of adequate fluid balance
TO me D appears to be the correct choice!

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by siddharthisback » Sun Nov 27, 2011 11:31 pm
The First para tries to explain us the meaning of homeostasis. and then in each of the subsequent Paras the examples mentioned in the first para are explained further. Hence the purpose of this RC is to give us examples of how homeostasis is achieved.

Hence the answer Is D.

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by k.pankaj.r » Wed Nov 30, 2011 7:19 am
imo D for 3rd ques