Summer Assignment 8.17

Back to our usual articles list this week. 

• 200,000 year old bedding includes evidence of bug-repellent measures
• High speed footage of a non-Newtonian fluid under stress. This is very easy to make at home, just mix cornstarch and water together to get the right consistency. There are tons of videos on YouTube about this stuff, here is one of my recent favorites.
• I usually stay away from health/diet articles here, since there are so many conflicting articles and viewpoints. This article I think does a good job at not just looking at the specific diet issue, amount and source of protein, but also hits on some of the other issues surrounding food supply in this country.

Summer Assignment 8.3/8.10

I am trying something different this week. The first week of our Summer Assignment, I shared an article by Carl Zimmer about how to read scientific articles. This week, I am going to attempt to guide you through reading a primary research article, section by section. Since this is a bit more work than usual, I am giving you two weeks to complete this assignment. 

Once you submit your responses, you should see the correct answers. I will be awarding points based mainly on completion, so don't worry if you don't get every single answer. Some of the questions may require you to do some quick searches outside the article itself to find some background information.

I have two versions of the paper for you to download and read. The EPub version will work in iBooks on the iPad, the PDF version will work with any PDF viewer.

EPub version (open in iBooks)

PDF version

To help guide you through the paper, I have broken it down by section and have reading questions linked below. As you read through each section, answer the questions to help you pick out the important information.

Questions Part 1: Author List and Abstract

The order the authors are listed on an article is not random. The first author is generally who performed the majority of the work, and the last author is the head of the lab where the work was performed. Also of interest in this section is the author affiliations, which reinforces the international nature of scientific research.

The abstract is a single-paragraph summary of the findings. This can often be very difficult to understand for first-time readers, since it tends to be very dense.

Questions Part 2: Introduction

The introduction section provides a brief overview of the current state of knowledge about the topic. This is a great place to learn what is known about SARS-Cov2 and what is still to be determined. At the end of the introduction, the authors will generally state how their findings fit into the current knowledge base.

Questions Part 3: Results

This section is fairly self-explanatory; it is all the data the authors need to support their conclusions. I have broken the questions down by figure to help pick out the important details. I do not have questions about every figure since I only wanted to highlight some of the results. 

Questions Part 4: Discussion

In this section, the authors state their conclusions and the importance of their work. Each of the pieces of data presented in the paper should be referenced to tell the story of their work. At the end of the discussion, there is usually a few lines added to highlight what the next steps should be on the topic.

Part 5: Materials and Methods/References (No questions)

These sections are not important for us, since you are just learning how to read scientific articles. However, these are very important for the field of science. The materials and methods section is important, because a very basic aspect of science is that it must be repeatable. Other researchers must be able to reproduce the authors results. In order to make this possible, enough experimental detail must be provided to repeat all the experiments. 

The references section should give you an idea that science does not occur in a vacuum, and all research is based on previous work. 

Summer Assignment 7.27

Taking a break from SARS-CoV2 news this week to highlight some other interesting/weird science things I came across.

• How the zebrafish got its stripes.
• Do we dream to keep our visual cortex from atrophying while we sleep?
• Once I saw this headline, I knew I had to include it. 

Summer Assignment 7.20

This week I have something a bit different for you. Instead of reading a few articles, I have a podcast interview for you to listen to. The podcast is This Week in Virology (TWiV), hosted by Vincent Racaniello, a virology professor and researcher at Columbia University. The interview is with Dr Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID). Dr Fauci began his scientific career investigating HIV and continues to be on the forefront of infectious disease outbreaks. The link below has both the audio only version and the video of the interview.

https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-641/

I highly recommend this podcast as a great source of information about SARS-CoV2/COVID-19. They are releasing 2-3 episodes per week right now, going over the latest research and clinical aspects of the current pandemic. As I mentioned in the first post 2 weeks ago, it is very important to find reliable sources among all the misinformation spreading currently.

Summer Assignment 7.13

There are a few comments from last week sitting in my moderation queue with no name associated with them. Please take a minute to scan the comments and check that yours was posted. If it was not, the most likely cause is that your name is not showing up. You will need to go into your Google settings and allow your name to be displayed on the site. Comments with no name associated will not be posted and no credit will be given.

This week I wanted to take a break from all the SARS-CoV2 research and look at a few other interesting new studies.

• Scientists Make Precise Edits to Mitochondrial DNA for the First Time
• Researchers Uncover a Critical Early Step of the Visual Process