Mcneil, Donald G. “Dogs Can Detect Malaria. How Useful Is That?” The New York Times, The New York Times, 5 Nov. 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/11/05/health/dogs-malaria-mosquitos.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fscience&action=click&contentCollection=science®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=3&pgtype=sectionfront.
For Current Event #7, I read the article “Dogs Can Detect Malaria. How Useful Is That?” written by Donald G. Mcneil. In this article, the author talks about how a small pilot study showed that dogs could detect socks worn by children infected by malaria parasites. Later in the article, the author explains how dogs were able to find bladder cancer in urine samples, lung cancer in breath samples and ovarian cancer in blood samples, and how a dog’s sense of smell is 10,000 to 100,000 times better than a human. And near the end of the article, the author talks about how the trial was only a feasibility study, and how the study actually did to find out that dogs can detect malaria. But the dogs can only detect malaria 70% of the time, instead of being accurate all the time.
This article is relevant because malaria has become a big problem in today’s society, because it kills a lot of innocent children around the world. But now that dogs apparently can detect this disease, they could be used to detect it in children, or they can be used to prevent it from spreading in a part of the world where this disease does not exist. Dogs could also be used to help find a reliable cure to this disease, and could be even used to learn more information on how the disease spreads and works.
I think this article was well written because the author talked a lot about the experiment, and how the experiment worked. Furthermore, I think the author clearly explained why this discovery was important, but I do wish she had included more examples on how this discovery could be used. Also, I think the author could have used simpler terms and language, because I had trouble understanding what the author was trying to say. Overall though, I think this article was well-written.
Maya Brinster
ReplyDeleteCore Bio 10H | Mr. Ippolito
November 21, 2018
Current Event #9
Mcneil, Donald G. “Dogs Can Detect Malaria. How Useful Is That?” The New York Times, The
New York Times, 5 Nov. 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/11/05/health/dogs-malaria-mosquitos.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fscience&action=click&contentCollection=science®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=3&pgtype=sectionfront.
For current event 9, I read Nick’s review on an article called “Dogs Can Detect Malaria. How Useful is That?” by Donald G. McNeil. This review was extremely well written, and there are many things that Nick did well in his writing. He makes sure to provide background information and a summary about what the author wrote. He writes, “The author explains how dogs were able to find bladder cancer in urine samples, lung cancer in breath samples and ovarian cancer in blood samples, and how a dog’s sense of smell is 10,000 to 100,000 times better than a human.” This allows readers to gain a better understanding about what the article is about, and will therefore be able to appreciate both Nick’s and McNeil’s writing even more. His writing is simple and makes sure to get the point across. Instead of using extra words that don’t do anything except add length, his sentences get down to the point, which makes his writing clear and easy to understand. I also like how his topic sentences at the beginning of the paragraphs accurately explain what the paragraph is going to be about. When reading them, I knew exactly what he was going to talk about in the following sentences of the paragraph. These three examples show that Nick is overall a very strong writer.
Although Nick is a very strong writer, there are still ways in which he can improve. I feel as if his writing was a bit too short, and he would have included a more detailed explanation of the article. I feel as if his summary was a bit too brief, however, this can easily be fixed if he just includes more details in his future reviews. I also think Nick could have had better closing sentences at the end of each of his paragraphs. This could aid his transitions, and overall make his essay flow better. He can fix this by adding another sentence at the end that summarizes everything he wrote about in that specific paragraph. Overall, however, these errors do not take away from the fact that Nick’s writing was excellent and very interesting to read.
Both Nick and McNeil’s writing impacted me very much. It made me realize how greatly the medical field has advanced, and how creative it has become. These new and unique discoveries can potentially lead to even greater ones that are extremely important to the advancement of medicine. With this information about dogs, we can explore more of their abilities which might also lead to other advancements. This has not only an immense impact on the medical field, but also on the world as a whole.