Luke Redman
Mr. Ippolito
Biology 10H
May 2nd
Kolata, Gina. "No Bones About It: Scientists Recover Ancient DNA From Cave Dirt." The New York Times. The New York Times, 27 Apr. 2017. Web. 02 May 2017. <https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/27/science/ancient-human-dna-cave-dirt.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fscience&action=click&contentCollection=science®ion=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=6&pgtype=sectionfront&_r=0>.
For my current event, I decided to review Gina Kolata’s article, “No Bones About It: Scientists Recover Ancient DNA From Cave Dirt.” The article is about a team of German scientists that found isolate ancient human DNA. However, they did not use a single bone to get the DNA. Led by Matthias Meyer, the group of German scientists had been trying for years to develop a technique for finding ancient DNA in desolate areas where no bones were found. Although the idea of finding DNA in sediment is not a new idea, these German scientists had advanced the new concept. The study that Meyer and his team conducted involved four caves where humans were known to have lived 550,000 years ago. They then used molecular hooks to retrieve genes from the mitochondria. They had also built a robotic system to analyze the samples, as doing it the traditional route would have been too time consuming. By the end of the study the scientists had gathered “between 5,000 and 2.8 million DNA fragments. The number of DNA fragments per sample that were from ancient humans was minuscule and ranged from 0 to 8,822, depending on the site in the cave.” These findings were important to the scientific community because it answered so many question which scientists could not address before. One scientist compared the study to, “discovering that you can extract gold dust from the air.” Scientists can now use the dirt in the area to determine if there was human remains, and they could excavate the earth with a much greater chance of success of finding bones and remains. Scientists can also start to look at open-air sites instead of being limited to just caves. These discoveries have given scientists an incredible amount of flexibility that was not possible before this study. Kolata’s writing style keep the reader engaged with the article, giving examples and numbers that draw the reader’s attention to how analyzing the sediments was more efficient than the traditional bone scavenging. An issue that I had with the article was the order in which the information was presented. The reviews of the study were placed before the actual summary of the study, which I found to be slightly confusing because usually, the author gives the details of the story first, then the reactions of the readers. The only thing that I would change about the article, other than the order of information, is to include more information on Meyer’s previous works, to further prove that the work done in the study is extremely influential, and not a fluke.
Catherine FAville
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Current event
I read my fellow students analysis on the article “No Bones About It: Scientists Recover Ancient DNA From Cave Dirt.” written by Gina Kolata, in this analysis he goes into great detail about how scientist have found DNA particles in the dirt from looking at sediment with a new technique, he went into vivid detail as to how exactly scientists were able to find these DNA molecules without any bones, he explained the scientist quite well. He also does a good job of explaining as to why they need or want to acquire this DNA, it was very educational and interested me into looking at this concept more into depth.
However this analysis could have been better improved if he brought outside information into his descriptions, giving the reader a thorough explanation of the article. Also it would have given the article a more powerful effect the added his own personal thoughts into it, making it more meaningful and interesting to read.
This article taught me that there are more ways than just one to acquire information, and it may be that are technology as of now can not detected it yet, but with improvements this knowledge will be exposed to us. The past is interesting to learn about because it is unclear and unsure, this makes new discoveries intriguing to learn and hear about.
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ReplyDeleteSarah Goodell
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Core Bio: Current Event Comment
2 May, 2017
Current Event #10
Kolata, Gina. "No Bones About It: Scientists Recover Ancient DNA From Cave Dirt." The New
York Times. The New York Times, 27 Apr. 2017. Web. 02 May 2017. .
My classmate, Luke Redman, wrote a review on the article “No Bones About It: Scientists Recover Ancient DNA From Cave Dirt” by Gina Kolata from The New York Times. In his review, Luke was able to summarize his article in a very concise format and make this article easier for his audience to fully understand. In doing so, Luke allows his readers to comprehend the message that he and Gina Kolata are trying to express. Also, Luke does a great job explaining how these findings will affect the scientific community and lead to other experiments. For example, he writes, “Scientists can now use the dirt in the area to determine if there was human remains, and they could excavate the earth with a much greater chance of success of finding bones and remains. Scientists can also start to look at open-air sites instead of being limited to just caves.” Finally, Luke provides a good explanation for how the author could better organize her article. This serves to enhance Luke’s review on the article, his credibility, and also allows room for the author to make improvements, based solely on constructive criticism.
Although Luke’s article was very informative, he could improve on a few aspects. Firstly, Luke can try to explain the molecular hooks that were used to retrieve genes from the mitochondria and the robotic system that was used to analyze the data more in depth. If Luke were able to elaborate on these mechanisms, he would be able to provide further clarity for his audience within the summary portion of his review. Also, Luke can try to work on his grammar errors and missing punctuation. For example, he writes, “...to determine if there was human remains…”, “...number of DNA fragments per sample that were…”, and “These findings were important to the scientific community because it answered so many question…” Luke is also missing a quotation mark at the end of a quote that he includes from the original article.
To conclude, Luke’s article was informative, well-organized, and allowed me to realize new things about the possibilities we have on Earth regarding science and further discoveries. He allowed me to think about the importance of continued investigation, and how there are always new and better ways to go about things. Luke’s review also made me realize that we now have so many more possibilities regarding DNA analyzation from ancient humans, which could lead to discovering more about their lives, ancestors, and their physique. This review has also made me realize that there is always going to be more to study and discover within the world of science.
Olivia Doyle
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Core Bio
10 May 2017
Kolata, Gina. "No Bones About It: Scientists Recover Ancient DNA From Cave Dirt." The New York Times. The New York Times, 27 Apr. 2017. Web. 02 May 2017. .
This week, I read my classmate Luke’s review on an article entitled “No Bones About it: Scientists Recover Ancient DNA from Cave Dirt”. The article discusses a new technique that was developed by these scientists to study ancient DNA from sediments. Luke did a good job of describing the experiment that the scientists ran, saying “The study that Meyer and his team conducted involved four caves where humans were known to have lived 550,000 years ago. They then used molecular hooks to retrieve genes from the mitochondria.” He also does a good job of explaining where scientists can go from here, discussing how scientists can use dirt from the area to try and discover human remains. Lastly, Luke had a solid critique of the article that included his own opinions on how to improve the article, saying “The only thing that I would change about the article, other than the order of information, is to include more information on Meyer’s previous works, to further prove that the work done in the study is extremely influential, and not a fluke.” This was significant as the reader could understand Luke’s opinion on the article while he was reading it.
Although Luke provided an excellent review of the article, there were some aspects of which he could have improved on. For one, Luke should have included more than one quote on the scientist’ opinion of the study. If he had done this, the reader would have gotten a better understanding of how revolutionary this study really was. Additionally, although Luke discussed where scientists can go from here, he should have expanded on how this technology can truly change things that we had previously believed. He says, “These discoveries have given scientists an incredible amount of flexibility that was not possible before this study.” If he had expanded on this point more, the reader would have gained a better understanding of how revolutionary this technology really is and how scientists can use it to further advance our knowledge of ancient humans.
I found this article to be incredibly interesting and enlightening. I did not know that scientist could extract DNA from merely rock sediments and not just bones! I liked how this article was somewhat related to what we are doing in class in that it discussed how advancements in rapid DNA sequencing helped to create this technology needed to extract ancient DNA. I am eager to see where this experiment goes in the future in scientist’ attempts to learn more about ancient human prehistory.
Marina Alfano
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Current Event 11
5/10/17
Kolata, Gina. "No Bones About It: Scientists Recover Ancient DNA From Cave Dirt." The New York Times. The New York Times, 27 Apr. 2017. Web. 02 May 2017.
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My classmate Luke Redman wrote a review on the article titled "No Bones About It: Scientists Recover Ancient DNA From Cave Dirt" published by the New York Times. Luke did a good job summarizing the article about a German team of scientists who had uncovered ancient DNA. As Luke explained, these scientists didn’t use bones to retrieve DNA instead they wanted to find ancient DNA in caves where humans used to live. Luke also did a good job including the data from the experiments led by Matthias Meyer. He used quotes from the study that show what the scientists had found, including the numbers of how many DNA fragments were found and how many of those were actually from ancient humans. It is evident that Luke read the article thoroughly because he gives constructive criticism to the author towards the end of his review.
Although Luke's review was very well written, he could make a few improvements to help the reader learn more about the subject. Luke didn’t fully explain the results of the experiment, specifically why these findings were so significant even though there were very small fragments of human DNA found. After Luke explained the data he wrote, “These findings were important to the scientific community because it answered so many question which scientists could not address before.” After this sentence, Luke did not go into detail and explain what questions were answered from these new findings so it left me wondering what questions this experiment answered.
I chose to read Luke's review because we recently learned about DNA and I was interested to see how scientists could obtain ancient DNA, especially from cave dirt. I learned that there are actually many different ways that scientists retrieve ancient DNA including using robotic systems to analyze the samples. This experiment shows how we are still gaining information from the past, as we advance technologically and if scientists can study DNA from 500,000 year old cave dirt now, imagine what they can do in the future.