Magnetic particles in air pollution may cause Alzheimer's disease
Chadwin Ng
News Article from Earth.com: https://www.earth.com/news/magnetic-particles-in-air-pollution-may-lead-to-alzheimers-disease/
Scientific Literature: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412024000989
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is one of the most common forms of dementia which affects approximately 90% of all dementia cases (Breijyeh and Karaman, 2020). The two most common detection methods of AD in its early stages include increases in Amyloid-beta plaques (a protein that builds up between nerve cells in the brain) and Abnormal tau protein phosphorylation (a protein that disrupts the transport of nutrients within brain cells); these are created by increased anxiety and stress, memory impairment, and mood changes (DeTure and Dickson, 2019).
It is believed that AD development is correlated with air pollution, mainly through diesel emissions, as studies remain limited and conclusions elusive. But recently, an iron oxide particle—magnetite—was found in the brains of AD patients. This discovery has not only broadened the scope of AD causation besides aging and genetics but has also reignited the discussion of potential environmental factors.
In this paper, Gunawan and her colleagues from the University of Technology in Sydney compared the behavioral changes, neuronal cell loss, Aβ plaque, immune response and oxidative stress-biomarkers between wild mice and mice with AD with a series of in vivo and in vitro tests: NOR and EPM tests (behavioral studies), near-infrared fluorescence (NIRF) molecular imaging probe, fluorescence imaging, and a combination of Quantitative Pathology Software and Bioimage Analysis Software. Model amounts of Iron, Hydrocarbons, and Magnetite were used to simulate pollution environments from urban areas such as India, Portugal, Italy, and England. The article goes into great detail comparing the biomarkers, behavior changes, and neuronal cell loss of mice within different pollution conditions and found that both subjects showed similar amounts of AD-related symptoms such as neuronal cell loss and immune responses (including inflammation). However, only oxidated stress was found in wild mice, while only increased detection of Aβ plaques can be found in AD mice. When comparing the iron-based and carbon-based pollutants, magnetite produced a greater extent of pathological changes relating to AD, yet no clear trends can be found within AD mice to confirm its role in developing AD. Overall, this leans towards a more qualitative piece as studies on environmental effects on AD remain ongoing. Nevertheless, it calls for the development of experimental mice that accurately mimic humans that sporadically get AD, and further investigations for the exact triggers of the air pollutant particle that induce AD pathologies (albeit extremely briefly).
The news article that I chose summarised Gunawan's paper derives from Earth.com, a site that produces news sources and blogs focused on nature, the environment, and science. A large majority of the article dives into the many implications of the scientific paper's findings, specifically narrowing down to the effects of magnetite while ignoring its comparison to diesel and other iron-based pollutants. What's shocking is that many of its "conclusions" do not directly derive from the actual journal article, with many of its claims being heavily exaggerated or taken out of context. For example, nowhere in the actual scientific piece do the authors mention that their experiments mimic "car exhaust and industrial waste," nor did they comment on magnetites' "magnetic" properties. The news article titled "Magnetic Particles" can be extremely misleading for unfamiliar readers, as if insinuating that magnets can cause adverse health defects.
Though not clear, there is a subtle political tinge to the left as the pro-science article attempts to relate to public policy and anti-pollution solutions such as renewable energy (which the science paper never calls for). Personally, this might inflate unnecessary concerns about air pollution by phrasing this discovery as a game-changing breakthrough, despite the journal's lack of direct encouragement. The article also doesn't comment upon the methods used by the researchers, which is surprising since I would assume readers of this scientific newsletter would be interested in the scientific method and the instruments used.
I'm pretty sure science nerds would want a picture of the mice tests or a picture of the ACTUAL BRAIN PART THEY DISSECTED.
All in all, the news article does a good job summarizing the findings of the paper and the relationships between air pollution and AD, but with a over-seasoning of fear-mongering. I wish the article included a figure of the behavioural experiments to show how the mice were stressed out, or how their brains produced the biological markers. Though the average science-interested reader would understand the news article and the paper without any major issues, the dire and emergent implications of the news article are a bit out of proportion. It seems that Earth.com is a fact-based pro-science source with a slightly left-leaning editorial bias, though it can benefit from some proper hyperlinked sourcing.
The news article inflates the journal’s call to action, but at least helps its mission of calling for more AD and air pollution-related research. Overall, I give this article a 6/10.
Bibliography:
-Cindy Gunawan, Charlotte Fleming, Peter J. Irga, Roong Jien Wong, Rose Amal, Fraser R. Torpy, S. Mojtaba Golzan, Kristine C. McGrath, Neurodegenerative effects of air pollutant Particles: Biological mechanisms implicated for Early-Onset Alzheimer’s disease, Environment International, Volume 185,
2024, 108512, ISSN 0160-4120, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envint.2024.108512.
(https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412024000989)
-Breijyeh, Z., Karaman, R., 2020. Comprehensive review on alzheimer’s disease: causes and treatment. Mol. 25.
-DeTure, M.A., Dickson, D.W., 2019. The neuropathological diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease. Mol Neurodegener. 14, 32
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI think the article did a great job of summarizing and presenting the information of the research paper. It doesn't have any misleading or misdirecting information and is well organized, categorizing the sections well. I also like that it has a "broader implications" section, which highlights the importance of the work. I would actually rate it higher, just for its accuracy and clarity. Again, like many articles tend to do, this one did not talk too much about the mechanistic insights into how inflammation and oxidative stress link to the effects of pollutants, but is reasonable given how complex the proposed mechanisms are in the paper.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Richard that I would rate this news article higher.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting to see articles from more science heavy sources. Sanjana Gajbhiye, the author of the earth.com article, holds a masters degree in bioengineering and biomedical engineering, and I feel like it shows. The news article was very clear, included sufficient background information, and didn't make any egregious assumptions. Also, she linked the original paper!
I'm also not sure if the figure you mentioned would be useful in the news article. I may have misinterpreted it, but it seems like those are just TEM images of the pollutants themselves. With that size bar I would expect a lot more to be going on in the image of a brain. Figure 2 has some brightfield microscopy images and figure 3 has some fluorescence images. I think the changes are too subtle to present the images themselves to a general audience and have them convinced.
That being said, I think images and figures are underutilized in these news sources. Sourcing or making them would add to the cost of the article, but I think the return would far outweigh it.
Besides the images in the research article, what do you think could be included in the news article to benefit the reader?
In the case of a general audience sure, but I still think that scientists would want some pictures of whats actually going on in the experiment. Though it may not add substance to the narrative/message behind the article per say, I still believe that there are some viewers out there that would want to see images related to the experiment rather than some random copyright approved pictures of windmills for example. I guess this is more debatable depending on the intentions of the author vs general readability as you have mentioned.
DeleteI agree with your analysis, the article does a good job summarizing the science in some regards but it also sensationalizes and misconstrues some of the paper's findings. I also enjoyed the broader implications section even if it wasn't originally discussed in the paper. I think Earth.com readers would enjoy hearing that improving the environment with stricter air quality rules or switching to renewables would help reduce AD rates. With all of that said, I think your 6/10 assessment is fair, but I disagree with you knocking the author for not including methods (procedure and instruments) or figures from the paper. Looking at the figures in the paper, they are either extremely dense or black and white bar charts. I don't think a casual reader would fully grasp the science taking place. Some photos of brains with and without AD would have been nice, but overall the figures seem challenging for an audience who would not necessarily read the original paper. Further, instruments used and exact procedures are hard to include in a short summary article since they generally need a lot of explanation and increase the word count unnecessarily. The audience can still understand the results of the paper even if they do not know how exactly the scientists measured magnetite. For those reasons I would increase the score to a 7/10
ReplyDeleteHonestly yeah you have changed my mind. Seems like my idea of adding more methods to the news article is quite the hot take so far. Maybe its just because I never done any neurology experiments/cognitive science stuff in my life so I just found the diagrams much more interesting in my opinion. I just thought that scientists would appreciate learning more about the methods they used, along with how did they actually "replicate" different types of urban pollution.
DeleteI agree with your criticisms, Chadwin, in that the article was a little misleading in its title, but I fear it may be another case of a different person writing the titles. I do agree that the phrasing could easily lead one less versed in the sciences to believe magnetic objects are linked to Alzheimer's from this article. That being said, the article did a surprisingly good job in giving a brief overview of the science, although I'm no biologist myself. I agree with Joe in that adding methods to the article may have been overwhelming for some readers, given already jargon-heavy introduction. On the other hand, the journal article did not include very descriptive figures, which I feel would have been a benefit to both the journal and the news article. I would also say I'm not sure I agree that the article's tone was centered around fear-mongering. I think with climate change accelerating as rapidly as it is, and with pollution already linked to so many adverse health effects, raising concern is a necessary step forward, even if it is not something we really want to hear. For these reasons, I would instead give this article a 7 or 8 out of 10.
ReplyDeleteYeah I definitely take back my "fear mongering" comment, but I still think the article attempts to be bit more unique by bringing some nuance to the environmental science discussion. At this point, everyone (besides scientists) already know that bad stuff in the air causes pollution, but is the paper itself really calling for that drastic of a "step forward?" Maybe the authors just want some insight on how adverse health effects stem from environmental factors, rather than just another copy and paste call for better air and renewable energy. Though this idea is definitely very far fetched of me haha.
DeleteAfter reading the Environment International article, one thing I did not appreciate was that you had to go to the SI to read about the methodology, particularly in terms of the sources of the particles that were injected into the mice or how the mice were observed. I don’t think this would have been an issue for Gajbhiye, who was mainly reporting on the study’s results. Most of the news articles we have read this semester don’t include reports on methodology in depth, and this one is no exception. However, since the methodology wasn’t stated directly in the paper, it makes more sense that Gajbhiye didn’t include it. If the primary authors felt that it was taking up too much space in the main article, the jounalist probably did too. I think this is key because Gajbhiye does have a scientific background in Biomedical Engineering. She defined terms when appropriate and simplified crucial results in the article.
ReplyDeleteI have to disagree with you when you mentioned that the scientific article never discussed car exhaust. Part of the methodology involved the researchers burning diesel fuel. Additionally, they compare their work to previous studies that tested effects of diesel exhaust:
"As for the carbon-based diesel particles, earlier studies have also noted their effects on neurodegenerative pathologies. Hullmann et al. reported less motor coordination in AD-predisposed mice upon exposures to diesel engine exhaust (950 µg/m3, 13 weeks), which, as also deduced in the present work, were associated with the observed higher plaque loads in the brain."
Admittedly, gasoline exhaust will not be the same as diesel exhaust, but to a non-scientific reader the nuance is subtle.
I also don’t feel that the discussion of the magnetic properties of magnetite detracted from the content of the article. I also did not get the impression that it incited fear of magnets. I think mentioning the magnetic properties was just a way to introduce the material. Gajbhiye later lists what causes magnetite in the air, and magnets are not actually one of the things she mentions. While the magnetite is the pollutant that caused the worst effects in the mice, it would have been important to also discuss the effects of iron and diesel fuel. Finally, what could have been more clearly communicated in the news article was that there was indeed a correlation between the magnetite pollutants and the disease, but it does not always prove causation. There are many genetic and environmental factors that are also linked to Alzheimer’s. I think Gajbhiye uses very strong language at the end of her article, almost implying that reducing pollution could prevent the disease entirely. While it is not completely true, I don’t think that is sufficient to characterize the piece as having a “left-leaning” bias. I agree with others who would have given the article a higher rating.
Looking back, I'll probably take back many of my points. But for your third argument, I don't think Earth.com would attract "non-scientific readers," or would have the average joe as their target demographic. Maybe I spent too much time in the scientific field/academic conferences, so perhaps I'm just being too nit picky with their claims. Thank you so much for your insight though and I appreciate the constructive criticism.
DeleteLike other people have commented, the title being misleading, for me, is not a huge deal and is most likely just a product of popular media farming clicks or someone else writing the title. I also think the lack of methods and figures in the article was probably beneficial for the intended audience because they would have been difficult to digest without significant discussion (Which would take away from the article being short). Some other people have commented that figures about brain scans/images would have been nice which I agree with. The article overall was well written, but I definitely agree with you that overall the content leaves a little to be desired, however, I would still bump the article up slightly to 7/10/
ReplyDeleteYeah honestly I agree at this point considering how much I've been blasted regarding my hot takes. I understand that news websites need to generate revenue somehow, but at what cost? Would adding such comments affect their credibility or their ability to glorify the science? As a seemingly more professional and scientific news source, I would expect them to at least have the decency/honesty to not inflate the papers claims. But again this is just my opinion, and discussions regarding the ethics/morality of the media can be explored sometime outside the class perhaps.
DeleteI think that the news article does a nice job of presenting the science in a way that is understandable to someone with no background on the subject, while not overly simplifying the topic. While I can see why the title could be misleading, I think that using “magnetic particles in air pollution” was used to describe what the article in a way more people would understand. Most people probably don’t know what magnetite is and would be put off from reading an article if the title included it, though maybe there was a better descriptor they could have used. It is true that media sources have misconstrued scientific papers to fit a political agenda, but I think this article was contextualizing the implications of this paper, not sensationalizing the science. I think some discussion of broader implications is nice for news articles to include as it can show the reader why they should care about the science.
ReplyDeleteIt's true that the title can help more people "understand," but is it still a good idea if it's clearly a misconception or half truth? To what extent should we misinform audiences so that we can make more people understand the greater narrative? Is there a way we can balance 'clickbaity' titles yet still produce an honest summary of the paper?
DeleteI understand where your coming from in your analysis, but like many of our classmates in the comments I would rate the Earth.com article higher. For being a short and concise article (which is favorable in popular media so average audiences will read through the whole thing before losing interest), it does a good job of covering the basics of the scientific literature's main conclusions regarding air pollution and alzhiemer's. Yes, we (chemists) did want to see more detail pertaining to methods and figures, but including these and the necessary explanations that come with them would significantly lengthen the article. Also, while the Earth article did make some exaggerations about the danger of air pollution causing AD health defects, I don't think they went too far out of bounds. I actually appreciate them tying the idea to politics and creating a sort of call to action which is effectively putting the science into effect so we can get more policy out in the world!
ReplyDeleteThis might be my personal hot take, but does everything in science need to be a greater call for action? I feel like everything within the scientific community is so oversaturated with how people can play hero/God to help the world in a better way. What are the chances that there are some scientist who just want to have fun and gain knowledge about the world (albeit very small) rather than push towards a grand "purpose?" I feel like if the authors of the paper did want to push such an agenda/narrative, they would've done so in the conclusion. To what extent should we inject ideals/values into academic papers while avoiding assumptions of their characters/ambitions?
DeletePersonally, I thought the new article author did a good job introducing the topic to the readers. While the news article is extremely simplified because Gajbhiye did not include that the mice were also exposed to iron-based particles and hydrocarbon-based diesel compounds in addition to the magnetite as well as the two different groups of mice used in the study (wild-type mice vs. APP/PS1 mice), I thought they included the most impactful findings from the scientific journal/ the most interesting conclusions that would entice readers.
ReplyDeleteSomething I found extremely interesting, was that a lot of blue links were to other earth.com new articles. For instance, the following words bring you to another earth.com article: Alzheimer’s disease, air pollution, brain inflammation, antioxidants, etc. A lot of these links cover articles unrelated to Alzheimer’s disease like the brain inflammation link which refers to a news article about COVID effects on the brain. Usually when a journalist refers to articles published by the same source, it is seen as ‘bad practice’.
Why do you think the author did this? Do you think the author was lazy and didn’t want to do outside research? Do you think the citation of more scientific articles would’ve strengthened their article? Why didn’t they do this?
Those two points are very interesting and I have never thought of that. I do have some sort of thought of how potentially "cherry picking" Gajbhiye was with only mentioning the effects of magnetite without including the other hydrocarbon based compounds. Would adding conversation regarding a comparison benefit the paper? How would this reflect the scientific community if we only took the more "catchy" bits for a stronger story rather than the entire picture?
DeleteIn terms of the "bad practice," I think Earth.com can be let a bit off since they are more scientific rather than journalist/media centered, so perhaps they just didn't know how to properly structure/reference in a news article the conventional way (just trying to play devils advocate). They for sure could have sourced better and more fitting articles if they were just referencing themselves though haha.
In terms of the question you posed, I doubt the author was lazy per say, but more likely inexperienced. There is a strong difference between an academic journal vs a news report after all, so maybe the author just didn't included the references as much so it wouldn't appear like a review paper. Nevertheless, my instinctual answer still believes that yes, more citations would've strengthened their article, both in terms of the narrative and the credibility.
I think 6/10 may be on the lower side, I think there are certain redeeming factors like the headings and a reasonable and relevant call to action. We've talked a lot when figures should or shouldn't be included and in this case, figures may not be the best thing to include since you would have to know much more background than expected of an average reader. When you say proper hyperlinked sourcing, are you referring to the fact that the way that she linked the article was more obscure, because then I would agree with you. I was at first unsure whether her hyperlinking the name of the journal would take me to the actual study or to the journal's main page; I think it would've been easier just to hyperlink "study" instead.
ReplyDeleteYeah I should have phrased it better. I just meant a clearer reference to the paper would be nice, along with better choices of references to other studies/claims.
DeleteLike some have already said, I also disagree with the idea that the discussion of the magnetic properties of magnetite detract from the topic at hand. I think for a reader who doesn’t know what magnetite is, mentioning that it is magnetic is a great way to describe the mineral since magnetism is a mineral identification diagnostic tool that the average reader who is not familiar with mineralogy would be able to understand without having to explain what the other defining identification characteristics of magnetite are (like, the average reader is unlikely to know what , for example, mineral cleavage is). I personally think also mentioning that magnetite was an iron oxide mineral would have benefited the description of what it is and help the reader understand why the original paper authors were studying the specific effects such as oxidative stress.
ReplyDeleteHow would you have wanted the article to introduce magnetite?
Yeah I agree with your first concerns, but perhaps changing the title to "iron particles in air pollution..." would be more honest and connects more to the study.
DeleteHonestly its not the way that magnetite was introduced that grinds my gears, since on the contrary, I think its summary of describing magnetite was really good. The article not only briefly summarizes its characteristics, properties, and its origins, but also how we can get it into our bodies. I just wished that they added more emphasis on why UTS scientists decided to look at magnetite in the first place. For example, mentioning that traces of magnetite were found in humans brains with AD would give readers more context on the significance/purpose of the study. But all in all, as mentioned in other comments, I think I was just being a bit too nit picky.
Although I think that the article had some shortcomings, I do think that it did an overall nice job summarizing the scientific paper. I think that the results presented in the article were not necessarily taken out of context, but I think that they were a bit exaggerated and Gajbhiye could have been more of an emphasis on the fact that the paper did not prove causation. For example, in her conclusion she uses the phrase "clear connection between air pollution and Alzheimer's disease", which although not incorrect, I think this is misleading phrasing especially since there were lots of nuances in which factors linked to AD showed increase and in which population of the mice. Also, when explaining how factors such as inflammation and antioxidants act on the brain, she uses other Earth.com article as her sources. I would have to do more digging to see if these article defined these topics correctly, but as a reader I would be skeptical of the validity of how they were described, especially as this article is covering a very relevant disease that has become more and more prevalent. Overall, I think that a 10/6 to 10/7 is an accurate rating of the article, but I do think that it is an important topic to discuss, especially as environmental issues correlated to public health tend to lead to policy change quicker than stand alone environmental problems.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I think that Gajbhiye did a pretty good job of summarizing the paper from Gunawan et al. I do agree that there are shortcomings to the news article as it can come off as a bit fear-mongering when there are certainly other factors to developing AD than just environmental factors. Even so, I do feel like the news article communicated the science in a well thought out manner by including the subtitles to break up the content. I disagree with you about including the methods because although this news source is targeted for more of a STEM audience, it still reads like an article for a much broader audience.
ReplyDeleteI think your 6/10 rating is very fair for this article. I was also bothered by the fear-mongering tone and over-generalization of the results of the study. The article seemed quick to assume that the trends seen in the research results would relate directly to humans. Also, the author used the terms "magnetite" and "air pollution" interchangeably, which muddied the results of the research paper. On the positive side, I appreciated the structure of the news article. I personally like when articles are broken up into different sections with clear labels. I think it makes the article easier to follow and and less cumbersome to read. What are your thoughts on implementing subheadings into news articles? Also, you mentioned adding a figure to this news article - I am curious which figure you think would be beneficial?
ReplyDeleteI think it is quite funny that the very first link presented in this article is a link to another article on this same site about potentially treating AD instead of the research article itself. I do like the headers for this article, it is something that has come up a couple of times with past papers we've read and it always makes reading and understanding easier in my opinion. I don't like how they don't cite the research article until the very last sentence, but it overall does a good job of making the science easy to digest to the average reader. I think it helps that the author of the article has a masters degree in biomedical engineering, she writes science well and it is clear to see in her article.
ReplyDeleteThat is true. Biology is really hard to explain to the average reader anyways, so I'm glad she was able to simple it down so much (especially with the research).
DeleteI found this post really interesting. Typically, I feel the clickbait titles are often just that, clickbait. However, in this case, the clickbait title seems to have some real truth (excluding the "magnetic" comment). One disappointment I had with the article was the exaggerations employed by the author in a way that I found went beyond scope of the peer-reviewed paper. I think in general the Earth.com article did a pretty good job of making the science accessible to a wide audience, but I think the liberties taken were unnecessary. The results of the study were interesting enough on their own. Overall, I think the article could be rated a little higher (maybe a 7 or 7.5 out of 10), but I definitely understand where you were coming from with your rating.
ReplyDeleteI hate to be the one who says something along the lines of "why didn't the news article include x," but there were two pieces of information that I felt were not adequately addressed that were key to the paper's findings. While this article is obviously focusing on Alzheimer's, the paper notes that they noticed neurodegeneration in mice exposed to air pollutants regardless of disease state, and I think it's important to mention that these pollutants could potentially impact even otherwise healthy brains, as it would provide a stronger call to action. Additionally, I think the article could have done a better job making it clear that while there does seem to be some correlation between these pollutants and the progression of diseases like Alzheimer's, the exact connection or mechanism of impact is not clearly known. The article makes the connection sound much more conclusive than it seemed to be in the paper, at least as I understood it.
ReplyDeleteYou did a great job breaking down the key points of both the scientific paper and the news article, especially how you compare what the researchers actually said to how the media portrayed it. I agree that Earth.com took some creative liberties with their interpretation, which can definitely lead to unnecessary fear. I like your point about the title “Magnetic Particles”. This makes it seem like the magnetic properties of magnetite are the big issue, when really, it’s more about the oxidative stress and the particle’s ability to reach the brain. I also feel like news outlets tend to simplify or overstate scientific findings, which might mislead people who don’t dig deeper, especially about a serious topic like Alzheimer's. Your point about how the methods weren't mentioned is spot on. I also agree that the author should have included some visuals or data on how the mice behaved under the experiments.
ReplyDeleteOverall, I think your post makes it clear that while the news article serves a purpose in raising awareness, it can definitely benefit from sticking more closely to the actual science.
I can see where you are going with the concerns about the not-so-hidden agenda of the website and how they seem to have spun the science in a direction that supports their goals. I get really frustrated with that because I tend to agree with these goals and I think the bending of scientific findings to support a supposed "truth" ultimately hurts the message. It's frustrating that society seems to be allergic to nuance because it makes some conversations harder. Additionally, may articles have to be phrased dramatically to get any attention in a world full of short-form video and 280 character limits. I think that's where the "magnetic particles" issue comes from. It's technically true but it gets sensationalized to the point of bordering on falsehood.
ReplyDeleteStill, this article did a really impressive job defining Amyloid-beta plaques and tau protein phosphorylation. I appreciate that the author didn't shy away from the science with that or oxidative stress. Overall, I liked the article. I'd rate it a bit higher than you did because she handled complex scientific topics really well: 8/10
The title is actually misleading. The "magnetic particles" differ from "magnetite". And the article also overgeneralizes the conclusion of the paper, which makes it hard to understand the content of the paper. On the other hand, the paper is organized and has a good structure. The subtitle makes the readers browse and go to the section they interested. I agree with your 6/10.
ReplyDeleteI agree with a lot of the comments above in that the article did a fairly good job of providing accurate points from the journal article, but maybe sensationalized the journal article a bit and overstated the results. One thing I actually enjoyed about the article was how accessible it felt, from the hyperlinks that provided more context and information on specific terms to the very short, concise sections and headers that made for a very easy read-through of the news article. I think one thing I would have liked to see done differently would have been linking the journal article at the top of the news article rather than the bottom, so that readers who don't make it to the end don't miss out on accessing the journal article itself. Overall, I would rate the article slightly higher at a seven or eight out of ten, because I think the most important part of news articles is their accessibility to a wide audience, and this news article did that very well.
ReplyDeleteI think you did a great job analyzing the articles. One thing that I really appreciate about the article is how it is separated into different subsections which makes the information easy to digest. Like what a lot of others have said, I would probably give this article a higher rating (7 or 8 out of 10). The news article dove deeper into specific definitions and formatted it in bullet points and summarized the information correctly while avoiding field related jargon. I personally didn’t feel the fear-mongering tone but I do agree that the news article does not talk about any of the limitations and constraints of the experiment that Gunawan et al. mention towards the end of the discussion section. Do you think adding the details on the limitations of the research article will draw away from the call to action?
ReplyDeleteI agree with your comments, though I'd probable give the article a slightly higher overall score. While at the risk of leaving a lot of key details out, I liked Gajbhiye's summary of the key takeaways from a very detailed research article. One thing that I think was actually done pretty well is her use of headings for different findings, which is a good way of ensuring that her coverage spans the whole article, rather than just a singular final conclusion. I agree that she could've included a bit of the methodology, and especially a discussion of the effects of iron and diesel particles in comparison to magnetite.
ReplyDeleteI also agree that the earth.com article used a lot of pretty broad language, which is sometimes a fearmongering technique, though I don't think this was necessarily the case here (aside from the title). Rather I think this is a way of simply digesting the Gunawan paper, which I found to have some pretty dense jargon (for someone w/o a neuroscience background). I definitely think there's a balance between including some technical language while still making the article understandable to the general public, and I'm curious to see what that would look like.
I appreciated your summary of the research article. I think that the news article was actually pretty clear and I liked the well-defined sections in it. It starts off with a direct link to the paper and walks through the major points and headlines of the article in short, digestible steps. This news article was already much more "sciencey" than I would have predicted before reading it, and I think it definitely would appeal to a different audience than a typical CNN reader, however the information was still clear and interpretable. I also have no qualms with the broader implications section because sometimes academic papers outline those broader implications but sometimes is up to the reader to determine how this research can be used.
ReplyDeleteGreat summary of the paper and article! Ultimately, I agree with much of your analysis, but I would probably give the article a higher score than a 6/10. The article does a good job articulating the primary points of the paper without an overwhelming amount of excess detail and jargon. This particular article, compared to many others we have discussed uses much more scientific language and concepts, this is a strength because it more accurately conveys the points in the paper, but also a weakness because it alienates some readers who may not have the necessary background knowledge. Personally, I did not think that the author was "fear-mongering," I think that this topic and the implications of the paper are inherently scary. Any good faith representation of the paper might frighten readers. And ultimately, it is the prerogative of the journalists to add spin or flourish to their articles (hopefully responsibly).
ReplyDeleteGreat analysis, Chadwin! I agree with you that the title of the article was a bit misleading; however, it was most likely another instance of a different journalist writing the title than the journalist actually writing the article. The author of the news article herself, Sanjana Gajbhiye, seems to have a deep understanding of the underlying science, and I feel she does a good job communicating this science to her audience. The article was clearly organized, and I feel it summarizes the findings of the paper very clearly without overcomplicating matters for the reader.
ReplyDeleteMoreover, I do not believe it was necessarily a detriment to the article not to dive deep into the methods, as this may confuse readers. I feel that the methods were at least hinted to with the following quote: "Scientists from the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) exposed mice and lab-grown nerve cells to pollutants from car exhaust and industrial waste." However, given that this is a very science-heavy news source, it is a bit surprising the author did not give many more details about the methods, as well as the fact that the author waited until the end of the article to link the original scientific paper. Despite this, I would likely give this article a rating that is a bit higher than 6/10.
I very much enjoyed your analysis of both the research paper and the news article. Although I am not too knowledgeable in biology, your analysis made reading the scientific article a bit easier to understand. I think the news article does a great job of summarizing the primary health findings throughout as well. I don't know if I necessarily agree with your analysis for the "call to action" part of the news article. I think it is important to relate air pollutants to their direct affect on health and push for policy change in regards to renewable energy in order to make a difference; therefore, I was not super bothered by including this recommendation in the news article. For this reason I would rate the news article a bit higher than a 6/10.
ReplyDeleteI found this news article to be highly flawed. The first flaw I need to mention is simply a spelling error. Under the weak immunity sub header, the author describes Magnite's effect on the immune system. I am assuming they meant to write about magnetite because that is what the article is focusing on the the portions around this section. Just to make sure, I looked into magnite and found that it is a trademarked alloy utilized for compounds bows. The material in itself is quite interesting, however it has nothing to do with the study that is being focused on.
ReplyDeleteMy other main issue with the article is the hyperlinks. The article was not linked till the very end which is concerning. On top of this, the hyperlinks for specific words take you to other articles that are generally about that idea. I guess this is something typical to see in new articles, but I thought maybe because this is a scientific new source these hyper links would lead to some sort of definition or at least broadening on that specific topic. I found the hyperlinks were often just random articles that included the word in the name. Overall, I think you did a good job analyzing these pieces and I agree with your rating of 6/10. It makes me a bit sad to see that a scientific news source is not able to represent the study well.
I would rate this article higher than a 6/10. I think that it does a good job of responses the mice had to the exposure, and chunking it into keywords like "oxidative stress" and "biomarker changes in the brain" may help readers to research key findings on their own if they so choose. I believe they should have referenced a scientific figure from the paper in the article, as readers of a science newspaper are likely to be interested in that. I also believe that the author should have linked the paper earlier in the article. I think it's very interesting that this piece came from a science-focused news source: we see a lot of biased reporting that targets the general public, but this is our first one targeted at science and environment enthusiasts. I would rate it an 7.5/10.
ReplyDeleteThis was a really interesting blog topic. I really appreciated your thorough summary of the news and journal articles. I agree with a lot of what people have said above. The article does seem to do a good job at breaking down the research into digestible categories and it seemed pretty accurate to me. I liked the headers for the sections of the news article. I also looked up the news article's writer Sanjana Gajbhiye and she has over 2 years of experience writing about scientific topics. I appreciate that she has a passion for specifically covering scientific articles which shines through in her article. I was also interested in learning about earth.com as a news source. It is encouraging to see writers and news sources dedicated to informing people who want to make a difference for the environment and planet.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the paper wildly makes assumptions way outside the scope of the paper, them mention putting the mice through car exhaust and industrial waste isn't wrong. The paper directly mentions exposing them to car exhaust fumes, and they are just talking about how magnetite can be a relatively common industrial waste pollutant. I feel that the news article very much over plays how certain the connection to Alzheimer's was, claiming there is a "clear connection between air pollution and Alzheimer’s disease" when that was not established in the paper. Given how inflammatory the news paper was, I would be inclined to give them an even lower rating of a 4/10 or a 5/10.
ReplyDeleteI think the news articles have done a decent job presenting the topic and I think I would rate this article 8/10. I definitely agree that the article had its shortcomings, particularly when it came to how it framed the connection between air pollution and Alzheimer’s disease. That part could definitely have been clearer! Also, I totally agree with your point of not mentioning the methods.
ReplyDeleteOn the positive side, I appreciated the article's structure. The use of headings made it really accessible, breaking down the content into small sections makes it easy to read and understand. It’s a great approach on how the article is presented, especially for a topic as dense as this. I think the article raised awareness, it could definitely benefit from a more balanced approach.
Overall, I enjoyed reading the article and your blog post. It’s great to see discussions like this happening.