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: 

From the surface to the seafloor:
How giant larvaceans transport microplastics into the deep sea

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!  

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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?)   

The role offloridoside in osmoadaptation of coral-associated algal endosymbionts to high-salinity conditions

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.)

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