The Nose Shape of Humans May Be Determined by Past Climates

STATES CHRONICLE – A new study indicates that past climates might have influenced the nose shape with which we are all familiar today. Researchers explain that our noses have a significant function, humidifying and warming the air we breathe. Thus, the nose prevents the inhalation of things which could damage our lungs and airways, preventing several illnesses. Due to all these functions, researchers have longed believed that the nose shape is somehow related to local climate conditions.

The nose shape of people may be influenced by climate

People leaving in cold and dry climates might have a nose which is better at moisturizing and heating the air. A group of researchers at Pennsylvania State University has revealed that there exist more proofs regarding the link between climates and the shapes of our noses. The new study was published in PLOS Generics on March 14.

Researchers discovered that the width of nostrils differs among populations which live in different regions around the globe. What is more, the higher the humidity and temperature in the region, the wider the nostril. The nostril adapted to the weather conditions, indicating that climate may have a significant role in shaping humans’ noses.

Humidity and warm weather may have determined nostrils to be wide

Arslan Zaidi, a postdoctoral scholar in genetics at Penn State and one of the authors of the paper, argued that physical traits are which are strongly related to the environment usually evolve faster, undergoing natural selection. This is the reason why scientists analyzed nose shapes. Dr. Zaidi together with his colleagues has developed seven different measurements for seven nose traits, analyzing the height of the nose, nostril width, protrusion, the skin pigmentation and the height in women and men whose parents lived in regions which were correlated with their genetic ancestry.

They examined four different regions from which they selected 40 participants in each group. The regions were South Asia, Northern Europe, East Asia and West Africa. Dr. Zaidi argued that his team will sample more groups in the future. The team of scientists selected these regions to maximize the distance across populations.

Only nostril width and skin pigmentation indicated greater difference than researchers would have expected due to chance accumulations of genetic mutations. Thus, people whose ancestors lived in humid, warm climates tended to have wider nostrils compared to those coming from cold, dry areas which tended to have narrower nostrils.

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