Posted for A.Kouvakine

Emanuel, Ezekiel J. “An Unsolved Mystery: Why Do More Men Die of Covid-19?” The New York Times, 02 Nov 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/02/opinion/men-covid-19-deaths.html. 

 

This review of the article “An Unsolved Mystery: Why Do More Men Die of Covid-19?” by Emanuel Ezekiel from the New York Times has some well-written and well-presented aspects. One of these aspects was the reviewer’s ability to give a quick yet informative summary at the beginning of the review. The reviewer does not drag on the summary but explains the entire point of the original article and its summary in just several sentences. “It discusses an interesting dilemma: men being more likely to die of Covid-19. Emanuel started the article off by giving a real-life case of a family of three that all got Covid-19. The mother of the family was worried that she wouldn’t survive it because of the health conditions. However, her husband was the one that almost didn’t make it.” The reviewer also put in a cited fact into the abstract as well, making it stronger. Another well-presented aspect of this review was the reviewer’s relevance paragraph, and how strongly she connected the article’s relevance to real life. I loved how the reviewer discussed Covid-19 as the current real-life issue, and then tied it to the article; explaining how reading the article gives us new and important information that will be very useful for us. It is in general very important to have a good second paragraph, and the review clearly understood this well. “So, being informed on these current day issues might help us be more cautious because we know something that might affect our lives.” The third well-written aspect of this review was reviewers’ critique of the original article. She starts by explaining what she liked about the article and several things that were done well, and then what she thought the author could have included or have done better. The reviewer also includes a quote to back up her claim that the author stated the main cause of the mystery. “Lastly, I really enjoyed the fact that he stated the main cause of this mystery or issue. ‘The medical community needs to be more open to exploring sex differences in disease.’” Overall, the critique was done exactly as it should have been.

However, no review is perfect and there are several things that could have made this article much better. One weakness of this review was that I felt a bit uninformed after reading it. Although a few quotes were used, they were mostly used for backing up claims and stating facts without explanation of where that information was found. It would have been better if the reviewer talked more about why more men die of covid-19 than women, instead of just circulating around the idea and bringing it up without giving further explanation and reasoning. In the critique, the reviewer does mention that not much information about why men are more at risk for the virus was given, but a quote she used mentioned there were several key factors. These key factors were never brought up in the review. “ ‘Still, the reasons men seem to fare worse remain mostly a mystery. Much more research is needed to understand it, and there are most likely several factors at play.’” Another weakness of this review which could have been made better was the length. This article was not too short, but it would have benefited if it was somewhat longer. For example, although there was a lot of explanation and text in the first paragraph, there was not a lot at all following quotes, and if there were this review would have been longer and better. The second paragraph lacks a quote as well and would have excelled with one there. 

I learned some new facts upon reading this review. I had previously heard that more men died of Covid-19 than women but have never read any articles about the topic until now. Nor did I know any facts about that situation, and am very surprised as well as concerned to find out that “‘Globally, the death rate has been about 50 percent higher for men.’ ” In other words, several things I have learned from this review were new as well as interesting to me, and my perception about Covid and the way it affects the two genders has changed.      

 

How Black Holes Are Formed

 

Konstantinos Koloutsos

Mr. Ippolito 

Current Events #7 (Review)

11/09/21

 

https://www.space.com/15421-black-holes-facts-formation-discovery-sdcmp.html 

Tillman, Nola Taylor. “How Black Holes Are Formed.” Space.com, Space, 11 July 2019, www.space.com/15421-black-holes-facts-formation-discovery-sdcmp.html. 

 

            Due to the lack of information on them, black holes are such a weird and crazy topic to talk about and learn more about. In the article “How Black Holes Are Formed.” by Nola Taylor Tillman, we learn about the different sizes and types of black holes. Tilman can guide the reader through articles using main topics and subtopics to ensure that everything can be easily understood. Throughout the article, we take a look at supermassive, intermediate, and stellar black holes. Although small, stellar black holes are still compelling, as explained in the article, stellar black holes form when a relatively small star collapses in on itself. These black holes consume dust and gas from surrounding galaxies, which means they constantly grow. Intermediate black holes are between stellar and supermassive; research from 2018 implies that intermediate black holes can be found in small galaxies or dwarf galaxies. Supermassive black holes are millions or even billions of times larger than our sun and center almost every universe. Scientists are still unsure as to how supermassive black holes are formed. One thing, however, is for sure, once formed, they never stop growing. The article also goes on to talk about what black holes look like, “The Event Horizon Telescope’s image of a black hole in M87 (released in 2019) was an extraordinary effort, requiring two years of research even after the images were taken.” This confirms our theories about black holes and gives us more material about them to study. This picture taken in 2019 opened a doorway into so much more than we had previously known about black holes.  

Space is infinite; we do not know a lot about space; we know close to nothing. Black holes are just a part of the long list of things out there that we either do not know about or do not have the answers to yet. The event horizon of a black hole is like a one-way door; our goal is to come back through that door after going in. Not even light can escape, making black holes even more enjoyable. The information beyond the event horizon can answer all of our how and whys about the universe. Advances in the knowledge of black holes can lead to breakthroughs and advances in our sciences and technology. There is an endless amount of good that black holes can provide; however, there is the same if not more, bad that they can do. 

The article I chose was very well written; I followed along and understood all the material without any trouble. Breaking up the article into different parts about the different types of black holes makes it easy for the reader to follow along. Also, the article goes very in depth for each topic they talk about, giving the reader ample information. Not to mention this article gave extensive information on how black holes are formed. This gives the reader an understanding of where this phenomenon comes from, making the topic even more fascinating. Although this article was very well written and highly informative, there are still some areas that could have been better. For example, there was no information on what we are doing to figure out more black holes. Adding an extra paragraph maybe on the attempts to send a probe in would make this article far more interesting. Another thing that could have been improved on was going more in-depth about the event horizon. The event horizon could be the key to so many things; giving the reader theories to think about would make this article ten times better. 

The Enormous Hole That Whaling Left Behind

 

Bruno Kahraman                                                                                                                      Nov 7, 2021

Chemistry C even                                                                                                                Current Event 7

 

Yong, Ed. "The Enormous Hole That Whaling Left Behind", The Atlantic, 3 Nov 2021. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/11/whaling-whales-food-krill-iron/620604/

For this current events assignment, I read "The Enormous Hole That Whaling Left Behind" by Ed Yong. This article centers around the relationship between whales, krill, and their growth patterns in the ecosystem. The article starts out with some context on whale hunting during the 20th century. During that time, whales were hunted for their oil, which was used to light lamps, lubricate cars, and make margarine. As the demand for the substance grew, so did the industrial scale in which whales were slaughtered. The article says, "In just six decades, roughly the life span of a blue whale, humans took the blue-whale population down from 360,000 to just 1,000. In one century, whalers killed at least 2 million baleen whales, which together weighed twice as much as all the wild mammals on Earth today." With such a great devastation to the number of whales, it was assumed by many scientists that the numbers of krill, small crustaceans that make up the bulk of whale diets, would skyrocket. The article describes how ecologist Matthew Savoca and colleagues developed a much more accurate method to measure how much krill whales eat, which has revealed previously unknown relationships between numbers of whale and krill. They were able to estimate that before whales were hunted on an industrial level, 430 million metric tons of krill were eaten every year by whales. However, today, after the large part of whale species have been killed, the total number of krill in the ocean has dropped down to less than 200 million metric tons. Normally if a predator species (in this case, whales) decreases in number, the number of its prey (krill in this case) would be expected to increase. The article says, "In the 1970s, many scientists assumed that the former whaling grounds would become a krillatopia, but instead, later studies showed that krill numbers had plummeted by more than 80 percent." The article goes on to explain this being due to a lack of iron, a mineral required in all living things. The North Atlantic Ocean, an area that once had large whale populations, gets its iron from dust blown over from the Sahara. However, in the South Atlantic Ocean, without the Sahara effect, most of the iron is stored in krill and other animals. After the whales ate the krill, their feces would turn into the ecosystem's compost and release the iron back into the ocean. The iron in the compost would then lead to a boost in the phytoplankton population, a prey for the krill to eat. The relation of whales, krill, and phytoplankton have strong correlation, with one species being affected, affecting the others. The article proceeds to explain a solution to the lack of krill. The article explains, "In 1990, the oceanographer John Martin proposed that the Southern Ocean is starved of iron, and that deliberately seeding its waters with the nutrient would allow phytoplankton to grow. The blooming plankton would soak up carbon dioxide, Martin argued, and cool the planet and slow the pace of global warming. Researchers have since tested this idea in 13 experiments, adding iron to small stretches of the Southern and Pacific Oceans and showing that plankton do indeed flourish in response." While John Martin's proposal for fertilizing ocean beds with iron for phytoplankton was meant to deal with climate change, the plan could also work to boost krill and whale population.

We as humans have a huge impact on our planet due to our consumption of resources. The more our collective civilization grows, the more resources we require. Whales were previously hunted for their oil, a substance that gained great value due to it being able to light lamps and lubricate cars. Our planet is now being faced with the enormous issue of climate change, the rising of global temperatures due to our carbon emissions. There is a possibility that we could combat both the issues of climate change and the devastation of whale and krill populations with John Martin's proposal. Both issues have dozens of teams pitching solutions and would take years to employ, but we need to face both issues with our best possible solutions, especially climate change.

After reading the article, I've come to the assertion that it was well written. The article begins by giving detailed context on the decline of whale populations and does a good job developing and explaining the food circle of whales, krill and phytoplankton. The article also ends by pitching a solution to the issue. One issue I had with the article was how it didn't bring up any other species related to the ones discussed. Another problem I had with the article was how it didn't discuss the end to whale hunting on an industrial scale. One way to solve both these problems could be adding two more paragraphs, one to address each issue.