Friday, August 25, 2017

Be bold in your reading! You have the tools to read anything...

Here's something I learned a while ago... 

... but I see lots of people who don't know:  When you read online, you can read nearly anything.  

Big point: Do NOT let yourself be intimidated by scary-looking titles, big words, or content that seems too complicated.  Using a couple of online research tools, you can read just about anything. 

Here's an example from  the journal Science, which is a journal that's as technical as it gets: 

Kakani Katija,  C. Anela Choy, Rob E. Sherlock, Alana D. Sherman and Bruce H. Robison.  Science Advances  16 Aug 2017: Vol. 3, no. 8

This link showed up in my email the other day (I subscribe to the "best of" articles as a daily post from Science).  It looks pretty interesting, but I don't know what "larvaceans" or "microplastics" are. I can probably guess what "microplastics" means--I've done some reading in my life, but what are larvaceans, and what do they have to do with such a story?  

I'm a pretty wide-ranging reader, but I don't know much about this topic.  

How can I read it and understand what's going-on here?  I have a two-step process for making this understandable.  
1.  Read through the article, searching for terms and concepts I don't understand.  I look up these terms, usually by opening new tabs with the searches, both so I won't lose my place in the original article, and to have several pages open for reference.  (My friend and colleague at Stanford Sam Wineburg calls this method "lateral reading," which emphasizes understanding the gestalt by pursuing multiple searches in parallel.   
2.  Simplify the text to a form that I understand.  That is, I go sentence-by-sentence (or paragraph-by-paragraph) re-writing the article in language that I can comprehend.  

Let me give you an example with this text.. 

The first thing that strikes me is that I don't know what a "larvacean" is.  I open a new tab (CMD+T or Control+T) and do a quick search for [ larvacean ], which tells you that they're 
"... solitary, free-swimming tunicates found throughout the world's oceans. Like most tunicates, appendicularians are filter feeders."  
And an image search tells me they look like this: 



Now.. what's a tunicate?  And what's an appendicularian?  

Quick! More tabs!  Search to the rescue!   Searching for definitions is quick, and you learn a bunch.  

tunicate:  a marine invertebrate of a group that includes the sea squirts and salps. They have a rubbery or hard outer coat and two siphons to draw water into and out of the body.  

Check Google Images:  [ tunicates ] 


And do the same for appendicularian.  When you look at the Wikipedia entry, you read: "Larvaceans (Class Appendicularia) are solitary, free-swimming tunicates found throughout the world's oceans...."  Ah.  We're getting somewhere.  A tunicate is a kind-of appendicularian!

Appendicularians look like this:  


Obviously, the big difference is that tunicates are mostly fixed in place, while larvaceans are free floating. Notice the larvacean in the upper right corner of the image!  

Now, when I read the abstract, it's going to start to make a bit more sense.  Here is the abstract from the paper:  

Plastic waste is a pervasive feature of marine environments, yet little is empirically known about the biological and physical processes that transport plastics through marine ecosystems. To address this need, we conducted in situ feeding studies of microplastic particles (10 to 600 μm in diameter) with the giant larvacean Bathochordaeus stygius. Larvaceans are abundant components of global zooplankton assemblages, regularly build mucus “houses” to filter particulate matter from the surrounding water, and later abandon these structures when clogged. By conducting in situ feeding experiments with remotely operated vehicles, we show that giant larvaceans are able to filter a range of microplastic particles from the water column, ingest, and then package microplastics into their fecal pellets. Microplastics also readily affix to their houses, which have been shown to sink quickly to the seafloor and deliver pulses of carbon to benthic ecosystems. Thus, giant larvaceans can contribute to the vertical flux of microplastics through the rapid sinking of fecal pellets and discarded houses. Larvaceans, and potentially other abundant pelagic filter feeders, may thus comprise a novel biological transport mechanism delivering microplastics from surface waters, through the water column, and to the seafloor. Our findings necessitate the development of tools and sampling methodologies to quantify concentrations and identify environmental microplastics throughout the water column.

That's a dense block of text to read.  So the first thing I do is to break it up a bit.  

I copy that into my text editor, and then add paragraph breaks so it looks like this: 

Plastic waste is a pervasive feature of marine environments, yet little is empirically known about the biological and physical processes that transport plastics through marine ecosystems. 
To address this need, we conducted in situ feeding studies of microplastic particles (10 to 600 μm in diameter) with the giant larvacean Bathochordaeus stygius. 
Larvaceans are abundant components of global zooplankton assemblages, regularly build mucus “houses” to filter particulate matter from the surrounding water, and later abandon these structures when clogged. 
By conducting in situ feeding experiments with remotely operated vehicles, we show that giant larvaceans are able to filter a range of microplastic particles from the water column, ingest, and then package microplastics into their fecal pellets. 
Microplastics also readily affix to their houses, which have been shown to sink quickly to the seafloor and deliver pulses of carbon to benthic ecosystems. Thus, giant larvaceans can contribute to the vertical flux of microplastics through the rapid sinking of fecal pellets and discarded houses. 
Larvaceans, and potentially other abundant pelagic filter feeders, may thus comprise a novel biological transport mechanism delivering microplastics from surface waters, through the water column, and to the seafloor. 
Our findings necessitate the development of tools and sampling methodologies to quantify concentrations and identify environmental microplastics throughout the water column. 
Then I edit this a bit to condense the text and rewrite it into something I understand.  Here, I marked in strike-thru font all of the text that's either obvious or not needed for me to understand it.  I added a few words in red font to summarize what's being said.  
Plastic waste is a pervasive feature of marine environments everywhere in the ocean, yet little is empirically known about the biological and physical processes that transport plastics through marine ecosystems.  and we don't know much about how it moves around.  
To address this need, we conducted in situ feeding studies of microplastic particles (10 to 600 μm in diameter) with the giant larvacean Bathochordaeus stygius.  We fed some larvaceans tiny bits of plastic... 
Larvaceans are abundant components of global zooplankton assemblages, regularly build mucus “houses” to filter particulate matter from the surrounding water, and later abandon these structures when clogged. 
By conducting in situ feeding experiments with remotely operated vehicles, we show  After we fed them, we saw that giant larvaceans are able to filter a range of microplastic particles from the water column, ingest, and then package microplastics into their fecal pellets. (Wow!  They accumulate plastic and then poop it out.)  
Microplastics also readily affix to their houses, which have been shown to sink quickly to the seafloor and deliver pulses of carbon to benthic ecosystems. Thus, giant larvaceans can contribute to the vertical flux of microplastics through the rapid sinking of fecal pellets and discarded houses.  Larvacean poop and discarded "houses" carry microplastics to the bottom of the sea.  
Larvaceans, and potentially other abundant pelagic filter feeders, may thus comprise a novel biological transport mechanism delivering microplastics from surface waters, through the water column, and to the seafloor. 
Our findings necessitate the development of tools and sampling methodologies to quantify concentrations and identify environmental microplastics throughout the water column.  (We need more study to figure out how big of an effect this is.)  

OR.. if you pull out just the essential text.... 

Plastic waste is everywhere in the ocean, and we don't know much about how it moves around.  
We fed some larvaceans tiny bits of plastic and found that a lot of it ends up on the ocean floor.
When they feed, larvaceans build mucus “houses” to filter particulate matter from the water, and later abandon these structures when they get clogged up. 
After we fed them, we saw that giant larvaceans are able to filter out microplastic particles from the water column. Surprise!  They accumulate plastic and then poop it out.
Since microplastics are also on their external "houses," this means that both Larvacean poop and discarded "houses" carry microplastics to the bottom of the sea.  
We don't think anyone else has noticed this.  
We need more study and more tools to figure out how big of an effect this is.
 In other words, It’s about how a kind of small, transparent animal traps tiny particles of plastic and then fall to the sea floor, where they accumulate.  

Here's an image from the paper that gives a great idea about what's going on.  

Link to paper.  


Give this method a try!  You'll find that you can quickly read more than you think you can tackle!  


Search (and read) on!  


----------------  

You might try it with this article.  See if you can come up with the same kind of understandable summary as I did.  (Scroll down to see my 2 sentence summary.  Do you agree?  Is this method useful to you?)   
















Dan's summary:   Some corals can tolerate very high levels of heat and salt.  What does their symbiotic algae do to help the coral survive?  Is it the floridoside that it creates?  (Which is a kind of complex sugar molecule.)
-->

10 comments:

  1. Hello , Dr. Russell

    Thanks for this position. It is very helpful and interesting. Lateral reading is something I do a lot (didn't know the name of this technique) And the second part of the process is something I will add to my SRS tools.

    I also didn't know the words you mention and searched so no need to search those now. I like your summary.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I went to YouTube to check some notifications and in my recommended list, this video with our topic. https://youtu.be/zR2pkfGo92U

      Delete
    2. Ramón - Nice find! This is a wonderful short video made my National Geographic Society and the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (which is where the authors of this paper are from).

      Why These Tiny Ocean Creatures Are Eating Plastic | National Geographic

      Delete
    3. Although the title is "... Eating Plastic," they don't actually metabolize the plastic. They just accumulate it in packets, which the is eaten by fish, or falls to the sea floor. It doesn't make the plastic go away.

      Delete
    4. Good Morning, Dr. Russell. I noticed Monterey Aquarium at the end of the video. Thanks for adding the link. As I posted on mobile, couldn't remember the way to make it live (I usually copy/paste data in the formula). I wonder if there are other creatures that converts those packets into something else. It is sad that even now fishermen says thy fish more plastic than fishes.

      Great day

      Delete
    5. I was thinking about micriplastics and decided to verify and learn more about what they really are. This video of CNN shows that and how everything is affected: https://youtu.be/sjyDHIplvpM

      Delete
  2. Thank-you for this blog. You have said exactly what people I know need to hear, "the world is their oyster' with their device in hand.

    ReplyDelete
  3. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  4. sponges
    the article
    ⌘-f in use… search progress…
    "Tim Reinhart • 20 days ago
    On my Mac Power Book, I used the "find" function (Command-f) and there was not one instance of the word "bleach" or "chloride" or "sodium" or "hypochlorite" in this article. The most common and abundant germicide in any household. It happens to be my sterilization method. Ten minutes in hot bleach and water (approximately 50/50)

    Nothing I know of survives a bleach bath except the cellulose material of the sponge.

    Now, after a bleach bath, the sponge smells "clean", and the bleach looks cloudy and contaminated. How is that condition not similar to a new nearly sterile sponge? Why would Moraxellaceae then dominate the biome if it doesn't dominate a new sponge?

    I have to admit, I was looking for some influence by Scotch Brite or O'Cedar."

    sodium hypochlorite, calcium hypochlorite

    the preferred method
    fwiw -
    The Rarámuri or Tarahumara
    Copper Canyon
    hard to cut the endorsement deal…

    ReplyDelete
  5. I've been meaning to ask — why the new colors for links (to make they more eye catching?) & why do they change color other than to show they have been opened?

    doh… dated (2008), but read through as part of the exercise
    "Finally, it may be that general search engine sites have become so useful and well tuned that people turn to them for an increasingly broad range of questions."
    Pew, SE use, DEBORAH FALLOWS (James's spouse)
    more recent example
    from here:
    Trust Online: Young Adults’ Evaluation of Web Content°
    and comments here…Ed Week article: too slow, too pondering, too behind-the-curve, too academic - not in a good way, imho… the students are performing in the manner they have been taught…
    they haven't been encouraged to be curios or "search boldly"; rather, check the box & race on.
    Why Students Can't Google Their Way to the Truth

    Stanford researchers
    EVALUATING INFORMATION: THE CORNERSTONE OF CIVIC ONLINE REASONING EXECUTIVE SUMMARY STANFORD HISTORY EDUCATION GROUP
    Medium - Stanford Alumni
    fwiw:
    pics

    ReplyDelete