Elaina Poulos 12/16/18
Biology Per. 3 Current Event Review
Temming, Maria. “A New Way to Turn Saltwater Fresh Can Kill Germs and Avoid Gunk Buildup.” Science News, 11 Dec.
2018, www.sciencenews.org/article/desalination-saltwater-fresh-water-sunlight?tgt=nr.
The article that I have read for my current event review is titled " A New Way to Turn Saltwater Fresh Can Kill Germs and Avoid Gunk Buildup" by Maria Temming. This article revolves around a new sun-powered invention that can turn saltwater into freshwater. The author explains to the readers how the invention works. She writes " The trick boils down to preventing a device's components from touching the saltwater. Instead, a lid of light-absorbing material rests above a partially filled basin of water, absorbing sunlight and radiating that energy to the liquid below." She continues to explain that the water will proceed to evaporate to create pure vapor which can be condensed into freshwater. After this, Tremming tells his readers that this new device marks an improvement in inventions like this (sun-powered desalination devices). She describes how this device is more advanced and better because unlike the old devices where sunshine-absorbing materials floated on top of the water, in this device there is a separation between the light-absorbing lid and the water's surface. This contributes to keeping the lid clean and it allows it to generate vapor tens degrees hotter than the water's boiling point. The lid consists of three main components, which Maria explains as "a top layer made of metal-ceramic composite that absorbs sunshine, a sheet of carbon foam and a bottom layer of aluminum. Heat spreads from the sunlight-absorbing layer to the aluminum, from which thermal energy radiates to the water below. When the water temperature hits 100 degrees Celsius, vapor is produced..." She continues further explains the process in depth. Temming included a quote from a Chinese materials scientist, Jia Zhu from Nanjing University in China. Jia Zhu said that the idea of a device that is able to produce superheated steam and kill germs and prevent gunk buildup is "a very innovative idea". After that, the author gives us an example of an experiment that was conducted using the new desalination device. She wrote that under a lamp that mimics sunlight the invention was able to evaporate 100 grams of saltwater without any salt getting on the underside of the lid. In October researchers used a curved mirror to direct sunlight onto the light-absorbing layer of the device to produce a steam hotter than 146 Celsius. Maria Temming concludes her article by mentioning the affect something like this device can have on society. In addition, she includes from two engineers explaining why this device can be such a great use for humans.
This article had many connections to society. The author made sure that we would leave the article with knowing some reasons as to why this device could benefit society. Temming writes "That evaporates the water to create pure vapor, which can be condensed into freshwater to help meet the demands of a world where billions of people lack safe drinking water." This line demonstrates a contribution to society because it is saying that this device could help save the lives of billions, yes billions. This is such an important connection because if this device gets finalized one day it can really be a game-changer. In addition, the author interviewed Thomas Cooper who is a mechanical engineer at York University in Toronto. He said "When you access these temperatures, you can use steam for things like sterilization, for cooking, for clearing, for industrial processes." This shows how versatile the things to do with the water are. This ultimately proves the relevance of the device because it is showing us how useful and hopeful it is. Temming also goes on to how this sun-powered technology could also provide an ecofriendly alternative to reverse osmosis. She quoted Qiaoqiang Gan who is an engineer at Buffalo University. What he had to say was "For resource-limited areas, remote areas or people who live on small islands, this [new device] might be a very good option for them to address their freshwater needs." Lastly, this article consisted of many connections to society. This device can help bring freshwater water to the people who need it. Clean freshwater everyday is like a necessity. We are so lucky to live in a time where this is being discovered and could hopefully be put out to the market so that more underprivileged people will get a chance to receive clean water.
The author, Maria Temming wrote a great and very informative article. Maria clearly has strength in being detailed and adding a good amount of detail. She didn't include too much that it would eventually get boring, nor did she include too little. Another strength of hers was adding quotes from professionals. I believe that gives the article a sense of professionalism along with credit. By including accredited individuals in the report it gave the report a greater sense of legitimacy as well. Also another strength of Maria Temming's is that her article was right to the point, but it had many details. A weakness of the author is that she didn't include a proper conclusion. I didn't like that because I feel like she should had included at least a small one of two to three sentences summarizing the main points of the article. If I were her next time I would write a conclusion to wrap everything up at the end instead of ending my article abruptly. In addition, I wished the author would have described the state the invention was in and in how many months would it be released out in the public, if it's going to be released anyway. I believe she should have done that because I was wondering throughout the article when is this ground-breaking drive going to be released, but she didn't go into that. All and all I truly believe Maria Temming wrote an extremely nice and informative article about a new desalination device.
Calvin Golimbu 1/4/19
ReplyDeleteCore Bio Current Event 11
Temming, Maria. “A New Way to Turn Saltwater Fresh Can Kill Germs and Avoid Gunk Buildup.” Science News, 11 Dec. 2018, www.sciencenews.org/article/desalination-saltwater-fresh-water-sunlight?tgt=nr.
Elaina Poulos was able to explain the purpose of the article really well and allowed me to gain a good understanding of what was happening in the article before I read it. I chose this because it is important to include, otherwise your review will confuse people that may not know what is happening because they may have not read the article. She is very good at pointing out the importance and relevance of this article. An example of this would be “She describes how this device is more advanced and better because unlike the old devices where sunshine-absorbing materials floated on top of the water, in this device there is a separation between the light-absorbing lid and the water's surface.” I chose this because it is important to strongly state how important something is because without having the importance the article is weak and the review and article have no purpose. Elaina also uses a lot of quotes. This makes her review stronger and more credible.
Elaina could try to speak her mind more and talk more from her perspective, this can make the article more seem more important and make her review seem more personal. She could fix this by using I or me more. She also does not have the best grammar in her review and this takes away from the power of the review and makes it seem much less important. She can fix this by reading over her review before she is done.
It is very fascinating how amazing this invention could be and how it could help so many people. I chose this because it could truly save a lot of people and help with many world problems such as world hunger and it could make sure all communities around the world have safe clean drinking water. This changes the way I see problems such as world hunger or world thirst and how hard it can be treat these things.
Maya Brinster
ReplyDeleteCore Bio 10H | Mr. Ippolito
Current Event 13
January 2, 2019
Temming, Maria. “A New Way to Turn Saltwater Fresh Can Kill Germs and Avoid Gunk
Buildup.” Science News, 11 Dec.
2018, www.sciencenews.org/article/desalination-saltwater-fresh-water-sunlight?tgt=nr.
For this current event, I read Elaina’s review on the article called “A New Way to Turn Saltwater Fresh Can Kill Germs and Avoid Gunk Buildup,” written by Maria Temming. The article is about a newly discovered device that can turn saltwater into freshwater. This solar powered invention is extremely important because places with limited drinking water can now have much more fresh and sanitary water. Overall, I love how Elaina went into detail when writing the review, because it shows that she is passionate about both the topic and the article. I also like how she backs up may of her arguments with quotes, which make them even more strong and affects her review as a whole. Elaina also had a great implications paragraph, and was extremely persuasive and passionate when explaining just how important the eco friendly invention is towards other societies.
Although this is a very well written review, there are places in which Elaina could improve upon. For example, there were a few sentences that were phrased rather awkwardly, and could have been arranged in a better way to make them more clear and to make the entire review flow better. This can easily be done with a little more editing and reviewing of the writing. I also noticed that some words, such as “she” were repeated more than necessary, which made her writing a little choppy. However, Elaina can easily fix this by finding synonyms for the words she finds herself repeating often.
This article and Elaina’s review are extremely interesting. There is a growing thirst for water that is sanitary and drinkable, as much of the sources are filled with dirt and saltwater. This invention not only greatly helps people in need of drinking water, but it also can be responsible for the growth of more crops as well as healthier, higher-quality crops, as the water in which they consume plays a major role in the quality of the crop. This invention will also decrease the amount of diseases and sicknesses in places that don’t have substantial drinking sources by killing the bacteria found in the water. Overall, this invention is extremely helpful and will play a major role in shaping societies all over the globe.