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[science-in-writing]

Final Analysis

This project has provided me with a multitude of different strategies when writing towards non-scientific audiences. As someone majoring in a scientific field, I sometimes find it difficult to summarize processes and concepts in a concise manner, and learning from the triumphs and mistakes of others has been an effective method for improving my communication skills. Listed below are some common tactics I have witnessed through my studies:

·        A casual and friendly tone makes transmitting information both interesting and easier to understand

·        Adding some sort of visual element into your work will assist in information recall and in the case of graphs and figures, will add credibility to your procedure.

·        Appealing to an audience with a protective identity can influence how your work is perceived by everyone - this can both help and harm your argument.

·        The addition of intraspecific debate within your work will make your findings seem more multi-dimensional and exciting.

·        The best hook you can present to an audience is to appeal to their sense of wonder. The world is rife with conflict, so something that foremost provokes a feeling of curiosity and interest appeal to most audiences.

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Kendra Pierre-Louis examines the effects of climate shifts on the hibernation of bears in northwestern Nevada.

The gradual increase on the world’s climate has disrupted the rhythm of the seasons- warmer winters, earlier springs- these things are changing how bears are hibernating each year. A study conducted by scientists in Durango, Colorado decrees that “For every one degree Celsius that minimum temperatures increase, bears hibernate for six fewer days.”. Hibernation is a necessary tactic to conserve energy during the winter, so awakening earlier each year expends more energy than if they stayed asleep.

The rhetorical tactics used in this peace appeals to both the moral and cautionary side of the public. Louis describes the increase in human/bear interactions because of bears awakening while it is still winter. She even accounts a story of a woman that witnessed a bear entering her home and raiding her pantry in search of food. The lack of natural food sources during the winter would usually not be a problem if not for the earlier awakenings, and Louis builds on this to garner the audience’s attention.

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Scientist Miwa Robbins at Cornell University sheds some light on a Japanese “wives-tale” in which lightning storms are supposed to stimulate the growth of mushrooms.

The beginning of the experiment starts with a device called a “Small Population Lightning Generator (SPLG)”, a wheeled device that emits electric shocks into the ground. The shocks are administered to a plot of forest floor and the number and size of Matsutake mushrooms recorded is compared to a control plot. What they found was that there was almost double the number of mushrooms in the SPLG plot, and they were almost 70% larger as those growth in a non-electrified environment.

              The rhetorical devices used in this article rely heavily on the wonderment hook for its readers. It precedes the experimental approach with an overview of Japanese mythology and Sanskrit gods that hold ties with the growth of mushrooms. Practical uses of this study include more effective ways of farming and harvesting mushrooms, however the reasoning behind how electricity helps mushrooms grow is still seen as a mystery.

[science-in-writing]

Research done by Dr. Fugazza has concluded that dogs maintain an “episodic memory” just as we do.

A “do as I do” command was taught to our furry test-subjects, making it possible to test the depths of their memory. Trainers would tap a chair or umbrella, being sure that the dog could see what they were doing, and then lead the dog behind a curtain where they would distract it for a period. They would then walk them out and give the signal for the dog to “do as I do”, which miraculously resulted in a successful recall of the previous action. The applications for this discover could lead to a better understanding of our own memory, specifically in response to Alzheimer’s.

The biggest pull used in this article would be its main specimen, dogs. Everyone loves dogs! And everyone also loves the confirmation that dogs love us too. James Gorman gives a very brief account of Dr. Fugazza’s work, with the article itself reaching no more than 600 words. The article itself seems very abrupt, but it is effective in maintain the readers interest with a related video at the very beginning of the article, as well as the confirmation that this study is applicable to studies regarding health.

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Humans have always had a need to go faster. Horses, cars, planes, rockets-and now warp drive!

Of course, all of this is speculative, but the Alcubierre drive is still considered a success within the community. It involves the possibility of compressing the space in front of us-giving us a shorter distance to travel- while also elongating the space behind us, effectively creating the “warp” in space around us.

This article (written by Ethen Siegel) uses a variety of rhetorical devices- most of which center around connecting with an audience over a shared love of pop-culture. It provides detailed and adequate background information that allows the article content to be properly absorbed, and seems to focus primarily on the potential applications that achieving inter-galactic travel. This appeals to the “wonder” aspect of a hook and leaves the reader optimistic for the future of this field.

[science-in-writing]

Watch out – this Venus flytrap anemone stings! 

Like the plant from which they get their name, Venus flytrap anemones trap unwitting prey. The anemone’s tentacles contain stinging cells that inject venom and can close to keep prey from escaping. 

This beautiful anemone was spotted in the deep waters of National Marine Sanctuary of American Samoa by researchers aboard the NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer. The anemone itself is perched on top of a dead Iridogorgia coral, perhaps to better access the current and passing prey. 

(Photo: NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research, 2017 American Samoa)

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Uh-oh.

Reptile sex is highly affected by incubation temperatures, and with climate change, we’re already starting to see the effect this has on wild species. Sea turtles are an r-selected species, meaning that they produce many offspring, each of which has a relatively low probability of surviving to adulthood. Most baby sea turtles don’t make it to adulthood, and with fewer males being born, that means that this generation of sea turtles from this particular area is going to be greatly affected by the time they’re ready to breed- fewer potential parents means a shallower gene pool, and if there’s not enough males, then… well, there’s not enough males. Usually females are the limiters of fertility, but that assumes a population with a healthy male/female ratio. 

Sea turtles are already threatened by humans- we eat them, hit them with boats, poison/choke them with plastic bags and other pollution… and now we can add “unintentionally screwing up sex rations via anthropogenic climate change” to the list of charges against us. 

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natgeowild A newly discovered dinosaur fossil has features that may look oddly familiar to us. Found in Mongolia, Halszkaraptor escuilliei looked and hunted like a duck. It’s related to the Velociraptor, and is one of the few known dinosaurs that lived on the water. The turkey-sized dino roamed Earth’s ancient wetlands more than 70 million years ago. Scientists rescued the fossil after it had illegally been poached and smuggled out of Mongolia.

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This firework jellyfish (Halitrephes maasi) was spotted by a team of researchers east of Socorro Island, Mexico. This species of jellyfish is so rare that it has only been spotted twelve times.

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The research conducted by Georgia Tech’s PhD student Alexis Noel and her supervisor David Hu on frog tongues could mean a world of change for the conservation of our slimy green friends, and it all started because of this viral video.

Studying both the tissue and the saliva itself revealed that the tongue was 10 times as soft as a human’s, and that the saliva exhibited more non-Newtonian properties, meaning that the faster it is flowing the runnier it becomes and vice-versa. Both aspects are crucial when catching prey because a softer tongue allows it to mold around an insect, and liquid saliva on impact allows it to flow into every crevice before its elasticity returns. These insights to amphibian physiology will give conservationist a better understanding of how to manage populations.

The article focuses primarily of the Bio-mechanical and physiological aspect of the norther leopard frog, citing that any insights to amphibian physiology will help inform conservationists on management plans. It starts by presenting a very entertaining video of a frog leaping frantically at a smartphone, and continues by giving a brief overview of what we already know about frogs. The information presented to us is supplemented with multiple analogies that help the reader comprehend how incredible some of these statistics are. Experimentation is a key point in this piece, as well as explaining the use of lab equipment and procedures, and it effectively adds credibility to the discovery. This article cites multiple sources, but only contains one quote from Augustus Waller, a biologist from 1849, to demonstrate how long frog tongues have been studied.