Charlotte Cagliostro
Ippolito
AP Biology / Current Event #17
2/28/19
Weintraub, Karen. “Split-Sex Animals Are Unusual, Yes, but Not as Rare as You'd Think.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 25 Feb. 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/02/25/science/split-sex-gynandromorph.html.
In her New York Times article, “Split-Sex Animals Are Unusual, Yes, but Not as Rare as You’d Think,” Karen Weintraub examines gynandromorphs. These organisms have both male and female characteristics, and are therefore often referred to as being “split-sex.” Weintraub specifically analyzes gynandromorphic butterflies, which contain mosaic coloring patterns that are characteristic of both males and females. She points out that many other animals, such as birds, crabs, and lobsters, also occasionally have gynandromorphic offspring. While it has been widely documented that many “split-sex” organisms exist, it still remains a mystery to scientists how they are created; most experts, however, suspect that gynandromorphs are born due to random genetic error.
In the second part of her article, Weintraub widens her discussion by discussing the importance and potential implications of the study of “split-sex” organisms. She explains that scientists believe that examining these creatures could contribute to research focusing on why certain human diseases, such as metabolic syndrome, autoimmune disease, Alzheimer’s, and obesity, affect one sex more often than the other. Scientists hope that a superior understanding of the role sex plays in the spread of disease will ultimately contribute to better treatment methods.
I really enjoyed reading Weintraub’s article. She was able to write an incredibly interesting article, while still making it quite informative. Explaining what gynandromorphs are and their importance in the medical field is a challenging feat, but she was able to do it with style and sophistication. I especially loved her discussion of butterflies, which she continually referred back to in order to make her piece easier to understand. She used numerous pictures that showed various gynandromorph butterflies, which helped to illustrate her points on the physical manifestation of such genetic mutations.
Sunday Ladas
ReplyDeleteMr. Ippolito
AP Biology C-EVEN
17 October 2018
Weintraub, Karen. “Split-Sex Animals Are Unusual, Yes, but
Not as Rare as You'd Think.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 25 Feb. 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/02/25/science/split-sex-gynandromorph.html.
I thought that Charlotte did a very good job writing about this current event. To begin, I thought the beginning paragraph had a really energetic and exciting to it. I thought that she did a really good job in writing with energy. I thought that she also did an exceptional analyzing the writers writing style. I thought that she brought up many points about how the author made it the article easy to read for her. She then followed her statement by providing examples as to how the author made it reader friendly. I thought that was a very interesting observation and point. Lastly, I thought that it was really interesting how she incorporated rhetorical questions into the passage. I felt like the rhetorical questions made the passage a little more captivating.
Charlotte does a really good job throughout the article analyzing and writing facts however, I felt that she could have had a more captivating introduction. I thought that as a whole the introduction paragraph was captivating however I feel like she needed the passage to be more intriguing in the beginning rather than at the end of the paragraph. Even though starting with a summary is a good way to explain the he article, I feel like it is not the most effective way to introduce a topic. I also felt that she could have elaborated more on the article. Her description of the article was brief and to the point however, I felt she could have added a little more to really help the reader understand the main idea of the article.
I thought that this was a very intriguing topic and a very prominent topic in today’s society. I feel like it relates to what we are learning in class as well as the sex issues in society today. I would hope that people would help to try and accept that this is a factor in society, however I know it is not something that can be fixed overnight. It is something the whole world has to work on and that is very hard to achieve.