Kirsten Ircha 1/8/18
AP Biology E/F Even Current Event #13
AP Biology E/F Even Current Event #13
Citation:
Strickland, Ashley. “11,500-Year-Old Infant Remains Reveal Ancient Population.” CNN, Cable
News Network, 5 Jan. 2018, www.cnn.com/2018/01/05/health/ancient-population-discovery-alaska-trnd/index.html.
In the article “11,500-year-old infant remains reveal ancient population,” by Ashley Strickland, the author speaks on the discovery of two female infants in the burial pit at Upward Sun River, in the Tanana River valley in central Alaska. As the article describes, the local indigenous community gave these ancient babies the symbolic names, “Xach'itee'aanenh t'eede gaay (sunrise child-girl) and Yełkaanenh t'eede gaay (dawn twilight child-girl).” The first child was between six and twelve weeks of age while the second infant was premature and at thirty weeks of development. Both of the infants were found to be related and were most likely cousins. After DNA samples were collected from the first child, researchers were able to relate her genetics to Native Americans is a distinct way. As Eske Willerslev, study co-author and professor at the University of Copenhagen describes, “The DNA led the researchers to determine that they had found a previously unknown genetic population of Native Americans, which they dubbed Ancient Beringians, that represent the oldest known genetic lineage of Native Americans to date.”
This discovery is of vital importance as, "It changes our understanding of the timing of events that formed the genetics of Native Americans.” This is because previously it had long been thought that the Natives migrated to America from East Asia 34,000 years ago using Beringia, or the land bridge that once connected Siberia and Alaska. These people were then believed to have formed the first population of ancestral Native Americans. Ben Potter, study co-author and department of anthropology chair and professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks elaborates on this discovery stating, "This represents the first genetic data from the last Ice Age in Beringia. Prior to this study, we did not know that this Ancient Beringian population existed. We had evidence of the other branch leading to North and South Native Americans, and indirect evidence for a single founding population. So our findings show that the early history of ancestral Native Americans is more complex than previously known." This is especially interesting because it allows scientists and therefore society to understand history on a greater scale. Essentially 34,000 years ago, a population began to separate from Asia. However, genetic exchanges still continued to occur until about 25,000 years ago, meaning that this groups most likely end up in Alaska. This is 10,000 years earlier than previously thought. Then, about 25,000 years ago, this Asian group met a more European group of people and the Ancient Beringians came to be. After, about 20,000 years ago, this group began to move South and split into the two major lineages of Native Americans, “The northern and southern branches”. The discovery of the two ancient infants has led to these advanced discoveries. Without sunrise child-girl and dawn twilight child-girl, history would still remain unknown or inaccurate.
The article is written extremely well. All of the more scientific terminology is written in a simple way that allows a broad range of audiences and ages to understand the text. Furthermore, the article is a good length as it provided very useful information, yet is not overly wordy and disengaging. Although I enjoyed the piece, I feel a couple of areas could be improved simply. To begin, I feel that some of the points were repetitive and stated too many times. As the ideas would have been just as strong if they were written in a concise manner, the author should consider not stating the same ideas multiple times throughout the piece. Also, the author only cites information from a couple of scientists and does not give a wide range viewpoints. In the future, the author should use additional sources as this will make the article feel more developed and specific. Even with minor mistakes, I feel Strickland’s work is very enjoyable.
Julia Pabafikos
ReplyDeleteMr. Ippolito
AP Biology
January 8, 2018
Strickland, Ashley. “11,500-Year-Old Infant Remains Reveal Ancient Population.” CNN, Cable News Network, 5 Jan. 2018, www.cnn.com/2018/01/05/health/ancient-population-discovery-alaska-trnd/index.html.
Kirsten Ircha did a great job reviewing her article “11,500-Year-Old Infant Remains Reveal Ancient Population.” by Ashley Strickland. I particularly enjoyed how Kirsten took the time to incorporate specific details about the children that were discovered and the different tests that were performed in order to trace back to 11,500 years ago. Additionally, I enjoyed Kirsten’s relevance paragraph stating that this research changes the understanding of the timing of events that formed the genetics of Native Americans and even goes into further detail to show the way the Native Americans migrated. Lastly I really enjoyed Kirsten’s critique paragraph where she states that the author begins to become repetitive with her points and that she could possibly use quotes from different scientists in order to display a more accurate and professional article. By pointing out all these flaws in the original article, Kirsten is able to strengthen her own review and ultimately prove that she has a certain view on how this new discovery of the babies helped develop an accuracy in history.
However, I believe that Kirsten did have two areas in her review in which she could improve upon. Primarily, I would recommend that Kirsten take the time to incorporate some brief background knowledge about these babies that were discovered and the ideas of how history has been able to become more accurate because of this discovery. Additionally, I would encourage Kirsten to shorten her quote which talks about the Ice Age and population of Bernegia one third of the paragraph is a quote from the article that is five sentences long. In addition, some of the information in the quote is not needed to connect the issue to society. To fix this issue, Kirsten could break down the quote into smaller sections and go into further detail on each section with her own words
Overall, Kirsten did a great job of creating a well written review that illustrated how the infant remains were crucial for scientists to accurately talk about DNA and history. I personally chose to read this article in order to gain knowledge about what the migration and population that was present on Earth thousands of years ago. Through reading this article I believe it provided me with a clear understanding of how human or animal remains can lead to many new discoveries that thus make our information not only in science, but history more accurate.
Sarah Goodell
ReplyDeleteMr. Ippolito
AP Bio: Current Event Comment
8 January, 2017
Current Event #13
Strickland, Ashley. “11,500-Year-Old Infant Remains Reveal Ancient Population.” CNN, Cable
News Network, 5 Jan. 2018, www.cnn.com/2018/01/05/health/ancient-population-discovery-alaska-trnd/index.html.
This week, I read Kirsten’s review on CNN author Ashley Strickland’s article titled “11,500-Year-Old Infant Remains Reveal Ancient Population.” Firstly, Kirsten did a great job providing her audience with an understandable summary and context for the discovery of the infant remains in Alaska. This serves to simplify Strickland’s original article and to allow Kirsten’s readers to fully comprehend the topic before moving onto the impact and critique paragraphs. Secondly, Kirsten used many quotes directly from Strickland’s article and from genuine researchers, which established Kirsten’s credibility as a critic and author. Finally, Kirsten provided her audience with an in-depth discussion of the significance of these findings and what scientists learned from the discovery of these two infants. This allowed Kirsten to identify the importance of this article and to portray those ideas to her readers.
Although Kirsten’s reflection was very well-developed and analytical, she could have done two things differently. Firstly, Kirsten could have talked more about where scientists will go from here in terms of research and discovering more about the infants. If Kirsten had done this, she would have provided her audience with more information about the effect that these findings will have on the future of science, as well. Secondly, she could have discussed more about the actual finding of the infant remains. At the end of Kirsten’s reflection, her audience has questions about the rest of the family’s remains and how they were originally found. In doing so, Kirsten would have eliminated some of the questions that her readers are left with at the end of her review.
I chose this article because I am very interested in anthropology and learning about the impact that findings of human remains has on our present studies and our future research. From Kirsten’s review, I learned more about how infant remains can provide clues into Native American lineage from hundreds of years ago. Also, I have not read many articles on ancient human remains in Alaska, so this was very interesting to learn more about. As for this article’s effect on society, it serves to inform people that ancient civilizations are still being discovered and being looked into today; there is still more to be found.
Robert Schetlick
ReplyDeleteMr. Ippolito
AP Biology Current Event 13
January 9 2018
Citation:
Strickland, Ashley. “11,500-Year-Old Infant Remains Reveal Ancient Population.” CNN, Cable
News Network, 5 Jan. 2018, www.cnn.com/2018/01/05/health/ancient-population-discovery-alaska-trnd/index.html.
This week Kirsten reviewed an article from CNN by Ashley Strickland titled “11,500-Year-Old Infant Remains Reveal Ancient Population.” Firstly, her review had a high quality summary which captured the essence of the original article, even though the source material wasn’t very lengthy. Nevertheless, her summary managed to wrap it up even further and assist readers in getting the informations in a shorter period of time. Whenever there were foreign words like “Xach'itee'aanenh t'eede gaay” She would put a little translation on the side, which was very helpful and professional; this is her definition of the word aforementioned: “(sunrise child-girl).” Next, she does an especially good job with her significance section. She really extended her ideas and brought the reader in interesting ideas, which she then brought out into a much more general and large scope. Using her definitions in her concluding sentence of that paragraph was also a nice touch. The third thing she does well is use evidence and quotations from the next, which is something that is always important. She has a great selection of quotes from key professors involved such as Ben Potter, and weaves her textual evidence in nicely.
Very little is wrong with the review, but a few mechanical changes and style changes might improve the piece as nothing is ever perfect in science. The stylistic choices were very nice and reflected the personality of the author, but the tone was a little informal. It takes away from the magnitude of the discovery when it is boiled down to simple sentences like “...I feel that some of the points were repetitive and stated too many times.” She goes to all the trouble to hype up the interesting article then simply refutes it with a personal opinion. It could be optimized to say “although some points were repetitive…”, which removes the awkward and passive “I” and also gets rid of the, ironically, unnecessary repetition in her review. Secondly, some of her criticisms and statements lacked detail such as, “ ...author should use additional sources…” but then never stating what those sources are, which isn’t very helpful. Statements like it was overall it was really good, don’t help the reader understand exactly what made it good.
I choose this article because I am intrigued by discoveries that overturn older ways of thinking and doing things. It is always amazing to see technology and new historical discoveries cause a shake in the scientific community and have everyone scrambling to rewrite and update their information. Figuring out the new timeline of Native American genetics opens up new possibilities for telling the story of how the population we know as Native Americans really came to America, and where their gene pool originated from, which was something that I was taught in school that may no longer be accurate, and I find seeing known history change first hand amazing!
Nina Veru
ReplyDeleteAP Bio, C-Odd
Current Event 13
1/9/18
Strickland, Ashley. “11,500-Year-Old Infant Remains Reveal Ancient Population.” CNN, Cable
News Network, 5 Jan. 2018, www.cnn.com/2018/01/05/health/ancient-population-discovery-alaska-trnd/index.html.
Kirsten Ircha reviewed an article published by CNN about the remains if an ancient infant. Throughout her review, Ircha did many things well. Firstly, Ircha’s writing was very well organized. Ircha organized her writing by having the first paragraph be a summary, the second being the importance of the study, and the third about the pros and cons of the article. In addition, the author did an excellent job of incorporating quotes into her writing. I found that she utilised the quotes without interrupting the flow of her writing. For example Ircha uses a quote to give her readers a better understanding of the research, and how it gives us information about Native Americans. She also uses quotes to explain the genetic data found in these experiments. Lastly, I enjoyed how Ircha mentioned researchers conducting the experiments mentioned. I believe that by mentioning other scientists, Ircha gives her review more credibility.
Although Ircha wrote an excellent review, I do believe she could have improved on a few things. The review was ultimately written well and thoughtfully, but at times I felt the author discussed more historical facts rather than scientific facts. For example, Ircha mentions how Native Americans came to the New World over a land bridge. Even though this is an interesting fact, it is somewhat irrelevant to the scientific aspects of the review. In addition, there were some grammatical errors in Ircha’s writing. For instance Ircha wrote, “meaning that this groups most likely end up in Alaska.” To revise this sentence, Ircha could have said, “ meaning that these groups would most likely end up in Alaska.”
I learned a lot of previously unknown information from Ircha’s review. These new finding gives us a better understanding about the genetics of Native Americans. I believe this is extremely important because there are very few Native American tribes out there today. It’s crucial that we learn about this disappearing population.
Luke Redman
ReplyDeleteMr. Ippolito
AP Biology
January 10th, 2018
Current Event 13
Strickland, Ashley. “11,500-Year-Old Infant Remains Reveal Ancient Population.” CNN, Cable
News Network, 5 Jan. 2018, www.cnn.com/2018/01/05/health/ancient-population-discovery-alaska-trnd/index.html.
I chose to read Kirsten’s review of “11,500-Year-Old Infant Remains Reveal Ancient Population.” by Science Daily. The article talks about the remains of a baby. She did a great job weaving quotes into her writing, along with how those quotes supported the topic. She also kept the language in the review reasonably simple, which elevated the experience. Another thing she did well was critique the author, and give reasonable criticisms.
While her review was very well written, there were some areas that she could have improved. She could have included more details about the actual experiment which would have enriched the overall experience of reading the review.Lastly, she could have explained what the experiment meant for the development of the human race.
I was surprised about the baby remains, which was mentioned in the article. Overall, Kirsten’s article was extremely well written, and I look forward to reading another one of her reviews.