In the National Geographic article, “Emperor Penguins
Counted From Space – A First”, scientists are astounded of what a new piece of
technology can do. Thanks to a
futuristic piece of technologic engineering, a satellite is now capable of
capturing high-resolution photographs from space. However, these are not
regular photographs. This is a new technique called pan sharpening, which
captures such high-resolution photos that scientists can tell the difference
between penguin poop and ice chunks on the ground. In the article, one of the
studies co-authors Michelle LaRue said it’s the same thing as “when you’re
looking through binoculars and tightening them up, making [your subject appear
in] finer detail.” This technique of extremely high quality photo capturing
from space satellites has a variety of essential and immensely important uses
that scientists can utilize. For
example the small and hard to study birds, penguins, are almost inaccessible
due to their location in extremely harsh and cold temperatures. Now thanks to
this new technique, scientists have been able to take the first ever penguin
population census from space. To their good luck, penguin populations in the
Antarctic are appearing to be expanding with more Emperor penguins than ever
before. Although this does not solve the global warming problem this will allow
scientists to monitor these penguins and gather information on the species that
they never would have been able to get before.
This
break through in satellite technology is a huge step forward in technologic
engineering. This will enable scientists to monitor large amounts of species,
mainly endangered ones. They will be able to track these animals and collect
information on trends in the populations and provide help if a problem arises
that is clearly hurting the species. With this newly gathered information
scientists will be able to formulate ways to help and provide to these
endangered and struggling animal species. Also this will help scientists
observe animal behaviors and how they move about in their given landscape. Clearly this satellite innovation will
have a dramatic and long lasting effect on the animal population as well as the
environment.
Although
this was a very interesting and informative article, I do think a few things
could be improved. For example, I
think the author could have gone into greater depth with explaining the species
of Emperor penguin and giving them proper background coverage, as they were the
species that was solely focused on throughout the article. Another thing I think the author could
have done better is giving a better explanation of what else the satellite is
used for and what has been done with penguins with the satellite opposed to
just stating that they had taken pictures of these massive colonies. Only a few spots lacked a proper bulk
of explanation and information, however, in no way did that ruin the
article. It was very interesting
and this new invention will definitely become very widespread in the years to
come.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/04/120413-emperor-penguins-survey-antarctica-animals-space-science/
Jesse reviewed this article pretty well. He did a good job of explaining the new mechanism, pan sharpening, that allows researchers to capture such high-resolution photos, even relating it to the palpable idea of tightening binoculars. What’s more, he built on this by explaining why this somewhat weird article was actually presenting an important finding. Since the small birds live in an extremely harsh climate, they are quite hard to study, so this advancement has made it possible for scientists to take the first ever penguin population census from space. Finally, Jesse definitely made all this clear and interesting to read, something important to keeping an audience when detailing a scientific discovery.
ReplyDeleteTo improve this, I might suggest talking more about the Emperor penguin species, and previous methods of study. It could be interesting as well to know more about the shortcomings of this invention: for example, what about endangered species under tree cover or other environments that would obscure the camera’s view? Also, gotta remember the MLA citation—that got me last time.
Overall, I found this to be a particularly well-done review. I had no idea that such detailed pictures could be captured from space, and I find it very encouraging that scientists have been able to add such a powerful tool to their arsenal in studying endangered species.
Jesse did a great job reviewing this article. He was able to summarize the article he read using clear and simple language instead of filling the review with several scientific terms. Jesse was able to keep the summary short, but was able to do a great job conveying all the information.
ReplyDeleteTo improve the review, I would have liked to hear more about how the scientists were able to get an exact count of the emperor penguins. What if they missed one or counted one twice? It would have also been cool to hear about how the new technology was built.
This was a great review and I learned many new things about the current advancements in technology. I hope scientists continue to make discoveries using this fabulous new piece of technology.
My classmate, Jesse, did a great job of reviewing the article, “Emperor Penguins Counted From Space – A First” from National Geographic. One aspect of his review that I thought was particularly good was his summary. It is difficult to summarize articles, especially scientific ones, in a clear and concise manner, which was exactly what he was able to do in his review. I knew what I was reading about and what the article centered around right away which helped me to understand everything that he said later in his review. I also thought that his use of specific evidence and direct quotes from the article was ver effective. He was able to elegantly intersperse the quotes and evidence throughout his review so that it wasn’t too choppy or fact heavy. Lastly, I thought that his second paragraph was extremely insightful. He took the information which he read about and made inferences about science in the future. He was able to take the basic knowledge gained in the article and insightfully interpret it.
ReplyDeleteAlthough Jesse did a great job reviewing this article there are some aspects of the review that could be worked on. For example, I thought that the writing, at times, was a little hard to follow because of awkward wording and incorrect grammar. If he were to change some slightly awkward sentences and phrases, the review would be a lot less choppy and would read more smoothly. In addition, I thought that he could have had smoother transitions between topics. While reading it, at points, I felt that he was jumping from subtopic to subtopic without much transition.
I learned a lot of new and interesting facts from this review. For example, I never knew that scientists had trouble taking pictures of penguins. I also never knew that a satellite from outer space could take a high resolution picture.
Jesse did a great job at reviewing ‘Emperor Penguins Counted From Space – A First’ from the National Geographic. He did a great job of summarizing pan sharpening. It was also great for him to include a quote by Michelle LaRue and explain it, since it really helped me to understand the article. It was really interesting to see Jesses’ point of view on ‘Emperor Penguins Counted From Space – A First.’
ReplyDeleteEven though Jesse did a great job of reviewing he could have improved it by including background information on how the technology was built and the penguins.
I was not aware of this new discovery before reading this article. It was great to learn about the pan sharpening.