Breanna Stewart

Article 1

20 February 2020

A Horse Has 5 Toes, and Then It Doesn’t was  published on February 8 2020 by The New York Times. It was written by Veronique Greenwood  and is important, because it discusses evolution and adaptation in a particular animal. This article is interesting, because instead of talking about evolution as a general topic and its history it highlighted a specific animal. It was also surprising to learn that horses once had as many toes as we do. It is something you would not think of or imagine happening, which made the article more interesting to read. Horses have hooves, but they once had five full toes. Greenwood stated “The hoof has been held up as a sterling example of the idea that if something isn’t working for a creature,it may shed completely”. 

Response

In the article, Dr. Kathryn Kavanagh, Scott Bailey and Karen Sears found out that the missing toes never left the horse when they researched preserved horse embryos and were analyzing horses’ days of gestation. When the scientists published their work in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, their results implied that “ certain stages of development cannot be changed,even if, in the adult animal, they leave no visible trace”.  I agree with scientists that something cool is happening in horses’ biological development. Horses do not need five toes now and had a short lived window with them. The article raises a good question “Would diverting development away from this digit forming processes cause serious problems”?

Picture Source: http://www.minnano-jouba.com/mame_chishiki11_en.html

Article 2

Calculating Air Pollution’s Death Toll, Across State Lines was published on February 12 2020 by The New York Times. It was written by Henry Fountain and is important, because it discusses pollution and climate change, which are topics that do not get enough attention. This article is interesting, because some people feel despite evidence these issues are fake news and do not affect us in major ways and in the article we see a political aspect to addressing these issues. The article details two major pollutants: ozone and fine airborne particles and how air pollution ignores state borders. The study included the “ sources and effects of two major pollutants that harm humans in the lower 48 states from 2005 to 2018”.  The study also looked at six other sources of pollutants including aviation and other types of transportation. 

  Response

I agree with the study that was conducted even though it did not include wildfires which have been persistent in California and Australia. I agree that work still needs to be done to reduce pollution. There has been a decrease in early deaths from pollution from things including power plants due to federal regulations, unfortunately the Trump Administration wants to overturn some of those regulations. I thought the article was different when they brought in a legal aspect. The analysis of the study could possibly be effective for lobbyists looking to reduce air pollution and premature mortality by “ regulating so-called cross state emissions”.