Popular Media Science Reporting and Science Research Articles:
Exploring the Relationship
1- What wording used in a popular science article would lead you to believe it is based on a peer- reviewed article?
a- Published By: American Society of mammalogists. (Source: Journal of Mammalogy, 94(6):1331-1345. 2013 )
b- Mario A. Cozzuol, Professor, UFMG- Universidade de Minas Gerais Belo Horizonte, Brazil.
c- Bioone Online Research ( View its website).2- Evaluation of the experimental design used by Maria A. Cozzuol, Camalia L. Clozato and Elizete C. Holanda to carry out the result of this scientific research.
This
discovery was based on a controlled experiment because the scientists heard from indigenous people that there is the presence of new species Tapir in
Amazon forest.
Based
on this visual observation, they used DNA, skulls samples from museum and other
tools to verify this observation. This observation pushed them to elaborate a hypothesis. The.The hypothesis of this research
was to compare the morphological and molecular specimens of the species of
tapir from western Brazilian Amazon with all other Tapirus species. The data supported the hypothesis because they
found a new species called Tapirus
Kabomani which has completely different molecular and morphological
structure than the others species of tapir.
The methods used throughout this research are
repeatable which means anyone can reproduce the same result.From my point of
view, this research wasn’t replicated because it showed the sources of data and
it was sponsored by many prestigious environmental organization and
universities all over the world such as Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, Berkeley,
California and Universidad Javeriana Bogota, Colombia.
The Tapirus
Kabomani can live only on forested area for this reason the deforestation,
increasing human population, and the construction of 2 large hydroelectric
complexes along the upper Madeira River and the reactivation of the Porto
Velho-Manaus highway, BR 319, which facilitate land occupation in the area
where the known specimens collected. The managers and the beneficiaries of
these projects may be in conflict with environmental organizations that protect
this endangered species.
The
popular article has almost the same title than the peer- reviewed article. The
popular articles (The Environment News Service) did a great in terms of detail,
precision and it follows the writing format of a popular article. It introduced
the tapir mainly as endangered species, and gave more details about the
processes used by the scientists to carry out this study. It mentioned the
effects of deforestation for this species.
Literature Cited
Peer- reviewed article
Mario A. Cozzuol. 2013. A new species of Tapir from Amazon [Internet]. UFMG- Universidade de Minas Gerais Belo Horizonte, Brazil; [Cited January 25, 2014]. Available from :http://www.bioone.org/doi/pdf/10.1644/12-MAMM-A-169.1
Popular Article
Minas Gerais. 2013. New Tapir species discovered in the Amazon. [Internet]. Environment News Service; [cited January 25, 2014]. Available from: http://ens-newswire.com/2013/12/24/new-tapir-species-discovered-in-the-amazon/
