Timothy Cushman
AP Biology
Current Event #1
September 12, 2017
“Why Bats Crash Into Buildings”
Yin, Steph. “Why Bats Crash Into Buildings” The New York Times Online. 9 Sept 2017. 7 Sept 2017. <https://nyti.ms/2xSIunu>
Bats use echolocation, the use of high-pitched sound and its echo off of objects, to locate and avoid objects in their path. Echolocation allows bats to move around in the dark without seeing, however, echolocation has some flaws that allow bats to hit into smooth surfaces like the sides of buildings. A false environmental cue, such as a smooth surfaces in the case of bats, that tricks an animal is called a sensory trap. New findings may help us understand why bats are found dead near buildings. Dr. Stefan Greif, a researcher in the field of bats and their senses, set up two different experiments to test the echolocation of bats. One where he took smooth metal plates and placed them on the floor. The bats mistakenly, thought it was water. This lead him to create a second study. In this second experiment, with the help of Sandor Zsebok, a research scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, he had bats fly down a tunnel which at the end had a metal plate resting against the wall. Of the 21 bats in the sample, 19 of them hit the wall. The bats crashed into the wall/plate because when trying to use echolocation, the majority of the bat’s high-pitched call was redirected away from the bat. Yin gave the analogy of pointing a flashlight at a mirror, when doing so, the light is reflected away from you as is the bat’s sound. Only when the bat got very close to the end of the tunnel did a small portion of the sound get back to it. Although those findings were compelling, bat expert Bronk Fenton from Western University, believed the experiment might be flawed. Bats use both echolocation and sight to avoid objects in their path. When sight and echolocation give different directions, he questions which sense took precedence.
This article, although seemingly irrelevant to many, is very important to the bat population. It is another example of how we are altering the environments around us and how that can affect animals that live in it. I believe that developers and citizens need to pay more attention to how they are building large structures to try and prevent bats from flying into them and getting seriously injured or potentially dying. One can infer from the article that altering the environment can affect not only bats but other animals as well.
Overall, I believe that the article was well written. Yin was clear in his writing but lacked details to support his ideas. There was sufficient background on the biology of bats and how their echolocation works. He also provided an excellent analogy to help the reader understand echolocation. To improve the article, the author could go into more detail about the first experiment and why the bats thought the plates were water. Also, the sample size of the second study was only 21 bats which is very small so the author should have pulled data from some additional studies. The author could also have looked into experiments done that studied the relationship between echolocation and vision.
Peyton Kinon
ReplyDeleteAP Biology C ODD
Mr. Ippolito
9/17/17
Citation: Yin, Steph. “Why Bats Crash Into Buildings.” Nytimes.com, 7 Sept. 2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/09/07/science/bats-echolocation-buildings.html?mcubz=0.
Hyperlink: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/07/science/bats-echolocation-buildings.html?mcubz=0
The article which Tim chose, "Why Bats Crash Into Buildings" by Steph Lin, is a very interesting article which brings up a relatively important issue regarding the well-being of bats: the fact that they can die or get seriously injured by crashing into buildings. Tim did a good job at summarizing the article. He discussed the outcomes of the two experiments in a very easy to understand way by using a simple analogy in which he compared the bats' sound waves bouncing off a smooth surface to light bouncing off a mirror. He also describes another reason why the bats might crash into buildings to show conflicting viewpoints which is necessary when writing an unbiased current event, such as this. Tim also does a very good job at his analysis of the article. He does a good job at explaining what he thinks the author did right and wrong. For example, Tim thinks the author did a good job explaining the biology of bats and what echolocation is and how it works, but he thinks that the retelling of the experiments could have been more detailed. Tim also explains some hard words or concepts in a way which is easy to understand. Similar to the "light in a mirror" analogy, he describes what sensory traps, false environment cues, and echolocation is in a very easy to understand way.
Tim did a very good job when writing this current event but there are a few things that he could improve. Certain sentences are split up in a way which disrupts the flow of the article. For example, in the first paragraph he writes, "Dr. Stefan Greif, a researcher in the field of bats and their senses, set up two different experiments to test the echolocation of bats. One where he took smooth metal plates and placed them on the floor." He then goes on to describe the first experiment and its outcome. Instead of describing both experiments then going into the results, he describes them one by one. The reason he did this is because the experiments weren't done at the same time, but the way it's written makes it sound clunky. Another thing he could improve on is that there are some sentences that have commas that don't need them. For example, in one sentence he writes, "The bats mistakenly, thought it was water." This sentence doesn't need a comma. There are a couple more sentences like this and they could have all been fixed by proofreading.
This current event taught me a lot about how building and industrialization is affecting wildlife. I knew that certain sea creatures and rain forest creatures were becoming endangered due to events such as oil spills and deforestation, but I never realized that bats were also being affected. If architects and designers continue building without this information, more and more bats could get injured or die as more buildings get built. This will change the way that I view the construction of new high rise buildings in areas with high bat populations.
Ellie Parson
ReplyDeleteAP Biology
Current Event Comment #2
September 20, 2017
Timothy Cushman’s review of “Why Bats Crash Into Buildings” was extraordinary in the aspects it succeeded in. One section of his summary I found to be strangely helpful was its formatting. Instead of introducing the article first like most reviews, Cushman decided to define some of the the article’s key terms. By doing so, the reader could understand what he was referring to in the article without him having to explain himself each time he used words such as “echolocation” or “sensory traps”. Another aspect of the review that was favorable was the use of quantitative information to explain the experiment in the article. Not only did Cushman explain the experiment with all of its crucial details, but he also included the results in the form of numerical data. The ratio and picture of nineteen bats out of twenty hitting a wall is a powerful image to his readers. Even though it is a small amount of information, Cushman was able to select it from the data and highlight the surprising, heartbreaking nature of the experiment’s conclusion. Lastly, a part I found to be interesting and informative was his relevance paragraph. He brought my attention to the fact that even though it seems like a small issue for people, it can mean life or death for the bats around us. He also made the point that developers and architects can change the way their buildings are made to prevent these issues from happening. His connection to society was extremely insightful and offered possible solutions to the problem.
Although his review was well written, there were parts that could have been adjusted to better the whole review. One aspect Cushman lacked in was the lack of quotes throughout his entire review. Even though he did include information and appropriate details in his own words, incorporating quotes from the author of the article can help the reader of the review gain a clear understanding of the tone and attitude of the article. Quotes also offer a way to add more data into the review, or a way to reflect on a specific part of the article. To fix this, he could add a few interesting or detailed quotes. Another part I believed needed work was the critique. Cushman only wrote one to two sentences to identify the strengths in the article, and didn’t explain why he thought so. An easy solution to this would be adding a sentence about a specific part of the article he enjoyed, instead of referring to it as vaguely “well written”.
From this review, I learned that not only birds face the issue of flying into buildings by accident. I chose this article because I have many bats living in my backyard and have never heard or seen one fly into my home, so I assumed such incidents probably didn’t happen as often. This review has changed my perspective of buildings and houses as dangerous to wildlife. It has reminded me again of the many consequences our lifestyles have on nature.