Jason Gerbsch                          Approximately 200 words

jg33@geneseo.edu

INTD 105: Scientific Writing

The article “Mars Contamination Fear Could Divert Curiosity Rover” by Alexandra Witze, describes the predicament of NASA scientists regarding the Mars Curiosity rover and possible traces of water on the Mars surface.  A total of 452 dark streaks have been identified on Mars’ surface that exhibit traits similar to that of liquid water.  These dark streaks that could indicate water on the Mars surface provide obstacles for the rover as international law prevents NASA from bringing the rover near the streaks, as to prevent Earth microbes on the rover from contaminating the potential water.

This article is an excellent example of a public facing science article for multiple reasons.  First off, the article provides a lot of information in a down-to-earth way that is easy for the average person to read and understand.  Many terms which may be unknown to the average reader are clearly labeled and defined.  There are a few moments where vocab and ideas may provide a slight difficulty to comprehension, but they are few and far between.  Secondly, the article provides the information in a way that captivates the reader.  The author utilizes strong language to give the article energy and sense of importance.

Article: http://www.nature.com/news/mars-contamination-fear-could-divert-curiosity-rover-1.20544

Robert Romano                                                                               214 words

10/17/16

The Impossible Made Possible

It is well-known and scary to know that when one’s spine is sever all function from that point and down the body will be lost forever. This statement fortunately may no longer be true. Nathan Copeland is a victim of paralysis and is now the first paralyzed person to ever gain a limited sense of touch. He has gained some of this crucial sense back because an electrical implant has been surgically placed into his brain and this allows him to feel pressure-like sensations through the use of a robotic arm. This discovery has had such a great impact that Dustin Tyler states “a significant and crucial advance and a step towards restoring sensation in people with paralysis.” The discovery is highly promising, but there are currently some limitations because Copeland cannot feel: movement, temperature, or pain with the robotic arm. Scientists say that this obstacle may be able to be overcome by using implants that contain a much more significant number of electrodes. Paralysis victims are now being given the chance to have a limited sense of touch when at one point this thought was viewed as impossible. It will be very interesting to see what will be discovered next to better the lives of paralysis victims.

http://www.nature.com/news/pioneering-brain-implant-restores-paralysed-man-s-sense-of-touch-1.20804

Sarah Lambert                                                                                 about 260 words

sel15@geneseo.edu

Student, INTD 105-19: Scientific Writing

Bruce Bower’s Public-Facing Article

By Sarah Lambert

    To achieve the appeal of the majority of society in science writing takes a skilled writer who can manipulate data, statistics, experiments, arguments and facts into comprehensible information and still appear educated in their sophisticated language. Often, it is a challenge for those outside of the science community to understand the data and complicated language of those within it. Writers who can effectively illustrate the events occurring in the science community are valued by those who wish to know what is going on and struggle to understand scientific language as these writers are essentially translators for these outsiders.

    Bruce Bower’s article, “Chimps, other apes take mind reading to humanlike level,”  effectively conveys and synthesizes several experiments done on chimpanzees and their reactions to other ‘ false beliefs. Bower relies on evidence like direct quotes, such as, “‘Apes anticipated that an individual would search for an object where he last saw it, even though the apes knew that the object was no longer there,’ says evolutionary anthropologist Christopher Krupenye.” He also includes data like, “Experiments included 41 apes — 19 chimps, 15 bonobos and seven orangutans.” This allows Bower to appeal to the logical aspects of the reader’s mind. These logical appeals develop Bower’s effectiveness in terms of this scientific writing because it allows him to develop evidence that the reader can comprehend and see the reasoning behind and within the experiments,

    Having an effective style of writing is very important when it comes to the sciences; it allows the rest of society to understand what’s going on around the world. More of Bower’s article can be read here: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/chimps-other-apes-take-mind-reading-humanlike-level

Aubrie Cross

INTD: Science Writing

About 200 words

Unusual Bird-Human partnership runs even deeper than scientists thought

In this article, the scientist reveal that the relationship between honey hunters and the greater honeyguide bird has evolved resulting the two to be able to communicate and work together. The honey hunters send out a call and the birds then respond until the honey hunter has found the nest that the bird has directed him to. The reason the two partner up and work together is due to the fact that the nest are embedded way up in the trees making them hard to come by. After the greater honeyguide directs the honey hunter to the nest, the honey hunter then smokes out the tree to get rid of the bees and then cuts it down. Once he collects the honey he then leaves the broken honeycomb pieces for the birds to then eat. One of the biologists said “It suggests that the honeyguide and human behavior have coevolved in response to each other.” I believe that this is a good public-facing article because they keep it short and readable for any level. They don’t use big scientific concepts to get their ideas across, instead they thoroughly explain the research that the scientists have done.

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/07/unusual-bird-human-partnership-runs-even-deeper-scientists-thought

Hunter Cowles                                                                                               275 words

hc17@geneseo.edu

INTD 105-19

A huge controversy has come to many environmentalists’ attention recently due to Volkswagen’s most recent blunder.  Many popular shows including John Oliver’s, Last Week Tonight, have expressed their displeasure with Volkswagen after they openly admitted to tampering with a car so it would appear that it had lower emission levels than the legal requirements. Emission levels recorded from the Jetta, one of Volkswagens most popular models, were recorded to be up to 35 times than the accepted amount. It’s also become common knowledge that many other companies, not just Volkswagen are involved in these scandals as well. Groups such as the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) have made strides to make more realistic road tests so the results can’t be that misleading. Many of the cars were intentionally placed on a sort of “lower energy mode” for the in lab testing so when the results came back, it appeared as if the car was running more efficiently than it actually was.

William Cronon wouldn’t be surprised by this at all since he’s always had such a cynical view of humanity. It’s extremely discouraging to hear that people would rather try to cheat an emission test than find an alternate source of energy that is cleaner. These emissions aren’t just harmful to plants and the environment, but can be harmful to people. Particularly in Europe where diesel cars are used a lot, there have been thousands of deaths a year as a result of nitrogen dioxide levels. These companies should have their experts try to explore alternatives such as electric and hydrogen fuels, since they have shown so much promise in recent years.

Emma Cooke                                                                 Approximately 250 words

erc8@geneseo.edu

INTD 105 Science Writing

His Brain Can’t Make New Memories — So He Built an App to Store them Instead

Science Reporter Nidhi Subbaraman met with Thomas Dixon, a man who suffered severe brain injuries in a car accident to discuss his new app and its role in his life. The hardest hit to Dixon’s brain was his medial-temporal lobe, the memory-making center. After his accident the memories he formed before remained intact, however, he lost the ability to make or remember new memories. Thomas Dixon attempted many methods of remembering his day to day life but wasn’t satisfied with his results until his newest method- an app. When journals became too difficult to find information in and private twitter feeds didn’t have the recall capacity Dixon was looking for, he created his own solution. He is now able to easily recall important details of his life, and those less important day to day memories most people take for granted.

Subbaraman’s piece on Thomas Dixon is effective public-facing science writing because the message of her piece is that this app could impact all readers. She emphasizes Dixon’s idea that his app is useful for everyone, not just those who have suffered from a brain injury. Subbaraman writes, “We don’t remember a majority of our own lives,” Dixon said. “People will say to me, ‘So this is an app for people with memory loss.’ And I will look at them and say, ‘You mean you?’” By incorporating this quote from Dixon she has been able to make this app, and its creator, highly relatable.

Subbaraman’s article can be found at: https://www.buzzfeed.com/nidhisubbaraman/memory-app-for-that?utm_term=.rogqYLK3G#.uxZAR5EdW

Paul Weissfellner

Prof. Fenn

INTD 105-19: Science Writing

October 17, 2016

This article, entitled “Can the U.S. Really Get Astronauts to Mars by 2030?”, was published in response to an enormous announcement by the Obama administration: the United States is planning on launching human-staffed missions to mars by 2030. This article takes a unique approach, in that it is about science but does not focus that much on the science itself. Rather, the emphasis is on what is possible; it lays out a series of common questions about the proposed mission and answers them in a clear, concise way. The science of the mission itself is extremely complicated: the engineering behind the rockets, the life support systems, etc. are all far too complex for the average person to understand, so the article attempts to take this exciting news closer to home by making it relatable and bringing as many people in, regardless of their level of scientific literacy.

Simon Lee                                                                     Approximately  180 Words

Shl5@geneseo.edu

Scientific Writing 105-19

Why a Goat may Stare at You with Puppy Dog Eyes

This article is about why certain animals that are domesticated, such as dogs and goats, look at humans with the unmistakeable “puppy dog eyes”. These researchers conducted a simple experiment by putting food in a container with a lid and making the goat open it. Once the goats were successfully able to do that the researchers made the lid unremovable. When humans were looking at the goat, the goat would almost immediately look at the researchers when it was not able to remove the lid. The researching team suggest that many animals will exhibit similar behavior only after spending significant amounts of times with humans.I think this is an effective public-facing article because it is short and captivating.  The writer is able to remove all the complex scientific terms that would be in a typical scientific article and made it so that people without a scientific background could enjoy the article and learn something.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/why-a-goat-may-stare-at-you-with-puppy-dog-eyes/

Juniper Tremper
Scientific Writing 105-19
Geneseo, NY
~265 words

Plebians Prefer Twitter over Science Magazines
Juniper Tremper

The biggest trouble scientists run into when trying to publicize their work is the inability of the general public to maintain interest long enough to gain understanding of the subject material. Therefore, a style of writing has evolved to present modern science in such a way as to not scare away the people who stop reading after the first two sentences. Rachel Nuwer’s article, “Twitter May Be Faster Than FEMA Models For Tracking Disaster Damage,” which is visible online, utilizes the format by breaking the textual element into pieces. The long and descriptive title, with an equally lengthy subtitle, makes no effort to mislead as to the article’s content. Each paragraph is only two or three sentences long, and each makes an immediate point, often referencing other case studies or professionals involved without explaining anything in detail because since the article is published online, any external information links directly to its source. Nuwer’s article discusses the very real potential to analyze the path of a storm by tracking its Twitter presence, which in itself could become a lengthy article citing specific numbers and the reliability of the corrolation, but the author abbreviates each point into extremely concise statements which are easy to follow from one paragraph to the next, and easy to remember for the reader to tell their friends about later. The actual values and scientific evidence are, unfortunately, virtually unimportant. The inclusion of a graphic, or a map, as Nuwer uses, is all the reader needs to put faith in the conclusion they are presented with, and share news of the article with friends and acquaintances.

For reference, Nuwer’s article can be found at: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/twitter-may-be-faster-fema-models-tracking-disaster-damage-180958391/

Will Gerber                      About 240 words

10 MacVittie Circle

Geneseo, New York 14454

(315) 250-9687

wrg1@geneseo.edu

Neurological Impact of of Poverty on Depression

By Will Gerber

Quality public-facing science writing appeals to readers by maintaining the complexity of the topic it is discussing without flying over the readers’ heads. Susan Scutti’s article “Effects Of Poverty Impact Gene Expression In The Brain” does this exceptionally well. It provides enough background on the topic for the reader to understand without being overwhelmed, and explains the results of the study in a similar fashion. It begins at the top, with a quick synopsis of DNA’s role in protein production, how chemical tags can modify the amount of a protein produced, and seamlessly connects these to the role of the neurotransmitter serotonin’s role in depression.

Scutti does not get into too much detail about the experimental process, but rather affirms its validity by describing its population size and bias removal (132 white teenagers from differing socioeconomic statuses). When relaying the experiment’s results, she returns to her introductory science lesson about protein production; “Teens growing up in impoverished households accumulated, over the course of three years, greater quantities of the chemical tag SLC6A4, the depression linked gene.”

To wrap up the article, Scutti outlines the importance of this specific study and describes further research. In doing this she makes the reader look forward to new developments in the field.
http://www.medicaldaily.com/effects-poverty-gene-expression-major-depression-387656