by John Noble Wilford
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/20/science/20feather.html?ref=science
This article is about recent fossil discoveries in Alberta, Canada. These fossil discoveries were in the form of and Amber fossil. Amber fossils, formerly known as fossil resin, are ones in which something is preserved in essentially a plastic. It could preserve bugs or feathers. But what is so interesting about these fossils is there is no bacterial breakdown, everything is perfectly intact the way it was then the resin engulfed the object. In this article Feathers were found in fossil resin. The interesting thing about these fossils was that they were found to have Color pigments that up until now people did not think dinosaurs possessed. These Mesozoic era feathers display evidence of a patterned design on the birds, which they used to be apart of. Scientists who had been studying the relatively bland fossils of the Mesozoic era never thought this colorful feather design was possible. No other Mesozoic fossils have displayed such colors, so this was truly a breakthrough.
I think this article could relate to everyone in the class because I think we all have been to a museum, such as the museum of Natural History. At these museums there are countless displays of dinosaurs and what they may have looked like. All these displays are usually filled with images of dinosaurs in a very bland color scheme, usually containing grey or brown-based colors. But these displays do accurately display the very dry and uninteresting color scheme that dinosaurs had. Until this new fossil was discovered. These Feathers are sure to brighten up some of those displays with more interesting color schemes. Although they will not be the bright colors we see in a peacock, they will certainly be more interesting. The patterns will be very noticeable when placed against greyish colors of everything else in the dinosaur section.
This article does a great job of discussing the latest Mesozoic fossil developments. The author was able to discuss the pigmentation that was discovered and explain how it was unique in a very thorough way. In addition the author conveyed the information in a very receptive style in order to reach a much wider audience. Unfortunately the author makes note of similar developments and findings in china without building on those statements. I think to really improve the article I think the author could have expanded and drawn more parallels between the Chinese findings and those in Canada. This would have made the article much more informative. Also the author mentioned an experimental X-Ray system of determining whether different colors were present in fossils. But the author fails to explain how it works, which would have been very interesting information. Overall this was a very will written piece on a very interesting topic.
I though Peter did an excellent job summarizing the findings of the article, “Feathers Trapped in Amber Reveal a More Colorful Dinosaur Age.” His summary adequately described the main points of the article that would be important for a reader to know, especially in his description of the amber fossil and why it is so significant. I also thought that Peter’s insight on to how this affects both himself and the rest of the class was particularly interesting and well thought out, and I am sure most people who read Peter’s review would agree with his statements. I also thought that Peter’s criticisms of the article, describing where certain assumptions were lacking justifications, were very valid, and I too would like to understand these parts of the article, as I was very interested by the topic. While I found Peter’s review very thorough, some of his grammatical errors were very distracting, and I found myself focusing on them rather than what he was saying, and I believe this took away from what was otherwise a very thoughtful review. I also think that Peter could have made his review better by including the fact that feathers are believed to be part of the earliest stages of dinosaur evolution. With this claim, not only would Peter be including a seldom known and very interesting fact, but also he would be providing an example of how this find has broader scientific meaning. In reading this article, I was shocked to learn that dinosaurs and early birds may have had a wider variety of color schemes than the drab grayish colors we often associate them with, and how the discovery of one feather could potentially change the entire vision we have of dinosaurs.
ReplyDeleteBrendan Walsh
ReplyDeleteI thought Peter did an excellent job at both summarizing and explaining his article. Particularly I think that he did a good job at breaking down the article into specific details that were significant to the reader. This helped to further understand exactly what this discovery means and what it exactly is. Additionally I felt that he did a great job at connecting the key parts of the article to how it affects everyone and not just the science community at large. Finally I thought that Peter’s description of these feathers and the amber fossil they were found in was insightful and helpful in impacting how I understood the implications of such a find. Although I think Peter did a great job in describing the article and how important the discovery really is, I felt that his writing as a whole seemed rushed and at times poorly worded. While grammatically it doesn’t take away from how interesting the story was it does effect how I understood the article. Another thing is that I felt that peter was a bit vague on certain topics that he brought up such as Chinese findings that he connected to the findings discussed in his summery, these could have been elaborated on rather then just mentioned in passing. Overall I felt that Peter did a good job at explaining a story that completely flips how I imagine dinosaurs.