The article “Different Strokes With a Baby on Board” talks about something that most people would never think of, or at least I have never thought of. When people think of dolphins we think of them swimming through the water but we never question what occurs when female dolphins are pregnant? In this article, Ritchie King writes about bottlenose dolphins and their ordeal that they must accept. When bottlenose dolphins swim, as a crusing speed around six miles per hour or a sprinting speed about twice that fast, they are constantly fighting against the water’s drag. This drag only gets worse as they swim harder but Shawn R. Noren, a marine biologist, set out to find how much extra drag would be experienced by a specific, aerodynamically disadvantaged subset of the dolphin population: adult females nearing the end of pregnancy. Over the course of pregnancy, a female’s belly will grow until her girth increases about 50 percent. The result is a drastic increase in drag: When a dolphin is within weeks of giving birth, she will encounter the same amount of water resistance at a speed of about four miles an hour as she normally would at a speed of about eight miles an hour, according to Dr. Noren’s analysis. Pregnancy affects a dolphin’s swimming ability in other ways as well. Dolphins acquire higher buoyancy that makes them less able to dive for prey.
Although many people do not tend to think of topics like this the scientific field has no limits. After reading this simple article I look forward to opening the New York Times because you never know what you are going to find. This article is just the start of future experiments that examine more then just the environment that animals are put it in. We are now examining very specific scenarios that we have not thought of testing before.
I felt the author provided a very interesting read and presented many appealing facts. I was disappointed that the article was so short because I am very fascinated to see how this new information will influence how we study animals. One thing I did find very interesting was the amount of sources the article cited. Not only did it seem that many experiments about pregnant dolphins were being taken but that there were more then just one university looking into the subject.
Work Cited:
King, Ritchie S. "Different Strokes With a Baby on Board." New York Times. 28 Nov. 2011. Web. 5 Dec. 2011. .
John does a very good job of drawing the reader into the topic through contextualizing it within commonplace conceptions of dolphins. I had never thought of water drag as a liability during pregnancy, because I had never known that dolphins grew so large! Inherent in his writing, which I greatly appreciated, was John’s seeming enthusiasm in the topic, because it helped me keep interested as well. One thing that threw me off, however, was that although John’s syntax is more elegant than I usually see in these reviews (a good thing, clunky sentences are a major turn off), he makes some silly mistakes in punctuation that could have been eliminated by proofreading. Also, because he probably directly sent from his computer, the review is weirdly formatted, with the text much larger and bolder than the rest of the blog, and so many varying fonts that it takes a while for my brain to adjust. He could easily fix this by posting straight to the blog, even if it takes two extra minutes. People are more receptive to aesthetically attractive pieces of writing, despite the merits of the piece.
ReplyDeleteOverall, James wrote a thorough review of a short article that was fascinating and thought-provoking. I thought the topic of the article was very interesting. James explained well how female dolphins suffer when they are pregnant. He explained in detail about the fact that they are much less aerodynamic and much more buoyant, making it difficult for them to catch their prey. I also liked how he included specific examples from the article, like examples from the studies that the scientists had conducted. Lastly, James did a good job of being honest in his review and stating how the article was too short, though it was compelling and made him want to read more about the topic.
ReplyDeleteSeeing as the article was short, one thing that James could have done would have been to find another article written on these dolphin studies and chosen that one to read instead. It must have been difficult to write a fully effective review with such a short article. Secondly, James could have quoted the article more. There were few specific references to the article in his review.
I agree with James, this topic is very interesting. I had not previously realized that pregnant dolphins may be inhibited from catching food because of their increase in size and less aerodynamic shape. I think this is a gripping subject that would certainly be interesting to research further.
James chose a very interesting article to write his review on. He accurately explains what the scientists in the article were doing and the results they found. Furthermore, when relaying the results of the experiment James adds specific details and statistics that really help the reader understand the study and its outcomes. I also agree with James’s critic of the article. He stated that he wished the article was longer and would have liked to see “how this information will influence how we study animals.” I too would have liked to know this unmentioned information.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I believe James’s review was excellent, there were a few aspects that would enhance his writing if tweaked. For example, at times his writing did not flow and therefore, was hard to follow. This could be corrected by changing around punctuation and proof reading his writing. Moreover, adding a few direct quotes from the article would have been a nice touch. He does a good job paraphrasing the overall article, but with the addition of quotes really would help readers obtain a full understanding of the study and its results.
I found the whole study James wrote his review on to be intriguing. I never would have thought that pregnancy could slow down a dolphin in the way described in this article. I would like to see some more articles explaining studies like this one.