Eva Cagliostro April 9, 2015
D Block Even Mr. Ippolito
Zimmer, Carl. "Behind Each Breath, an Underappreciated Muscle." The New York Times. The New York Times, 06 Apr. 2015. Web. 09 Apr. 2015.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/07/science/behind-each-breath-an-underappreciated-muscle-the-diaphragm.html?ref=science&_r=0
The New York Times published article “Behind Each Breath, an Underappreciated Muscle” by Carl Zimmer explains the importance of the diaphragm and how genes build the muscle. Zimmer argues that the diaphragm is a muscle that does not get enough credit for its role in helping most animals to breathe and for evolving from a jacket of muscles surrounding the rib cage to a new muscle supporting the lungs. Scientists theorize that this evolution was the result of a change in the way that the embryos of mammals develop. They believe that mutations in DNA caused certain cells to create a new muscle. Zimmer then describes Dr. Kardon’s experiment that focused on that creation and why the muscle sometimes doesn’t develop. There is a condition called diaphragmatic hernia where babies are born with a hole in their diaphragm, which can restrict their breathing and possibly kill them. Dr. Kardon and her fellow researchers created an experiment to look for the mutation that causes the defect by discovering how genes construct the diaphragm. By tracking certain cells in mice, she learned that the cells become a connective tissue over the liver that eventually grows muscle on top of it. In the second part of their experiment, the scientists examined the gene that is connected to diaphragmatic hernias, GATA4 in mouse embryos. They discovered that when the gene was turned off in the connective tissue, the mice developed the hernias. From her data, Dr. Kardon concluded that the connective tissue cells are using the gene to build a chemical trail for muscle cells to grow off of. A geneticist from Harvard Medical School described the new study, “I think it is a beautiful study and terribly important.” However, some scientists do not believe that the study is accurate. John Greer argues that most of the holes in the diaphragm from the birth defect are located in the back of the diaphragm while Kardon’s holes were located in the middle. The scientist then defended her experiment by saying that many of the holes are not recorded by doctors because they do not present any immediate threat. Zimmer summarized the study in the end of his article by writing that Dr. Kardon’s study proves that the connective tissue could have been formed to separate the lungs before the muscle was created.
Zimmer’s article is important to society because it describes an experiment that explains how the diaphragm was evolved in mammals. This idea that the connective tissue was formed first and then the muscle that helps us to breath was formed later helps us gain a further understanding of the human anatomy and the evolution of a certain part of mammals. “Behind Each Breath, an Underappreciated Muscle” is also significant because in describing Kardon’s study, we now know how diaphragmatic hernias are formed. Other scientists can then use this information to develop a cure for the birth defect or find a way to prevent it in babies.
“Behind Each Breath, an Underappreciated Muscle” was an informative and interesting article that was very well written. Zimmer gave the reader background information before describing the experiment and then did an excellent job of narrating Kardon’s experiment and its conclusions. The author’s focus remained on the topic and he did not add any unnecessary information. He even discussed the argument of scientists who don’t agree with Kardon’s conclusion and her counter to their case. However, the article was a little confusing because he included descriptions of the diaphragm that were difficult to follow. If Zimmer had included photos of the muscle or animations of its creation, the reader would be able to understand the experiment further.
I chose to read Eva’s review on the article, "Behind Each Breath, an Underappreciated Muscle" by Carl Zimmer. I thought her review was really detailed and informative on the article she read and her summary of it was especially well presented. After reading the summary, it seemed like this article was very long and had a lot of information to cover. However, she did a really good job of covering all the important points and made it easy for the reader to understand what she was talking about by explaining everything. Also well done in her summary was the different viewpoints she gave from many different scientists. This made the topic seem more important since many scientists were discussing it. Thirdly, I thought her paragraph on the topic’s significance was really good because not only did she state why the study is important right now, but explained why it would be helpful to scientists in the future.
ReplyDeleteEven though her review was really well done, there were a few things that could have been presented better. One was the size of her summary compared to her last two paragraphs. While there was obviously a lot to cover in the article and she did good job getting to all of it, the last two paragraphs are actually the most important and it would have been good to get a little more on both of them. Another thing was the quote she used. Since it was the only quote, it was the only direct piece of information we got from the scientists and I feel like it could have been a better quote to back up their claim.
One thing that particularly impressed me was the way she handled reviewing this article because it seemed like a very complex article. Even though there were a few parts that I still don’t really understand in the summary, she definitely seemed to understand it and did a good job analyzing it. Overall, I enjoyed reading her article and learned a lot about the human anatomy.
I read Eva’s review to the article, “Behind Each Breath, an Underappreciated Muscle", by Carl Zimmer. It was a very well written review. Eva’s did several things that contributed to the success of her review. For example, her summary draws the reader right in and it flowed very well. She was talking about a lot of different things at once, but she managed to make it easy to follow along and understand what she was talking about. Also, she mentioned a couple different scientist, which tells the reader that her article is about something well investigated and is backed about by real evidence. Lasty, I should praise her for being so honest about the article in saying that it was a little bit confusing at times and with a topic so advanced, I can definitely understand why. Although the review was very well written, there were a few things that Eva could have done that would have made it even better. Not only could she have expanded a little bit more in how it affects society, she could have also included why this article benefits or effects our generation or age group. It would have been interesting to see her opinion about that. Also, there was a lot of summary. Although it was all very informative, I feel as though there was a little too much information. Besides that there were many interesting things that I took from reading Eva’s review. The most interesting fact that I came across while reading Eva’s review was how some babies are born with a hole in their diaphragm and how this can possibly kill the baby. I’m interested if this is a very rare thing or not. All in all, I think Eva did a great job in her review because it was interesting, informative, and well written.
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