Anatomy help:positive and negative feedback. please help me?

Question

can anyone please give me an example of each?

a non-body related example

i need to do a comic strip and i can't think of an example to use

Answer 1

Here is one that is not related to anatomy, as you asked.

The situation is an electric blanket with dual controls so that each person can control the temperature on his/her side of the bed.  If the controls are normally situated, i.e., the controller for the left side is on the night stand on the left side of the bed and the controller for the right side is on the right night stand, then negative feedback takes place.  When either of the parties gets too hot, he/she turns down the set temperature on the thermostat to reduce the temperature back to its set point.  When either of the parties is too cold, he/she turns the temperature set point up to a more comfortable temperature.  That is negative feedback.  The thermostat returns the blanket to its set point when the temperature is either above or below the desired value.

Positive feedback can be illustrated with the same example, except that the controllers are on the wrong sides of the bed.  If the person on the left is too cold, he/she turns up the thermostat.  However, the left thermostat is controlling the right side of the blanket, so the temperature on the right side goes up.  The person on the right gets hot and turns down the thermostat placed on his/her side.  However, the person on the left side of the bed gets colder, and turns his/her thermostat up again.  The person on the right gets even hotter and turns down his/her controller making the person on the left even colder.  In the end, one person is extremely cold, and the other is extremely hot.  Neither get to their set points.

In summary, negative feedback is used to maintain control about a set value, but positive feedback sends the system out of control.