Category: Blog Entry 1 (Page 2 of 2)

To be honest, I was a little bit confused about the article for a number of reasons that I’ll explain below:

First, I wanted to get some context to the article by doing a bit of research on the writer. Lawrence Galton. After putting his name into Google, I realized that the top links were all links to Amazon books written by him. However, I could not find a comprehensive biography of the author or anything else. He did write a number of books, including “You may not need a psychiatrist, How your body may control your mind”, “Medical Advances”, “Truth About Senility and how to Avoid it”, “Truth About Fibre in Your Food”, “1001 Health Tips”, etc. There is something to be said about someone who publishes a lot of books, but I find it odd that there isn’t any information about personal life or specific professional life on Galton in the form of a biography.

Another thing that came to my attention is how technical the article is. I’ve always known the New York Times as a paper that aims to appeal to the general audience, hence a simplified read, but the article written by Galton relied heavily on scientific jargon that I feel the general public would find hard to understand.  Perhaps this may be because of just how the New York Times has evolved throughout the years. This article was written in 1971, more than 40 years ago. Compared to the popular articles by New York Times article shared by classmates from the first assignment, this article is definitely a lot more heavy.

Another aspect of the article that stood out to me was the large drawing of the molecular structure by Walter Hortens. I agree with Robert that the drawing was not really necessary for understanding the article. The article really did not refer to the image to explain its points. However, it did lead me to think about the various reasons for the author to include it. Perhaps it gives the audience a sense of credibility towards the author?

Overall, I thought the article was interesting. There were just multiple parts throughout where I scratched my head.

I found throughout this article, there was more scientifically technical information than would be found in a New York Times article today. The way it was written, the intended audience has at least some science background. Early in the article, there was a bit more jargon than I was comfortable with, or I felt was appropriate for an article intended for the general public, but as I read further it became a much easier read.

I felt the molecular drawings, while interesting to look at, were unnecessary in a New York Times article. The publication is intended for a general audience, most of whom would not understand the visual representation of a molecule.

The study discussed in the article was quite interesting, and seems to be the beginning studies of modern day Plan B contraceptives. I am very curious to know if the drug discussed in this article is the same one that is a popular contraceptive today, or if this study was more of a starting point for other pharmaceutical companies to begin their own oral contraceptive research.

Overall, I felt had this study been done today, this same article in the New York Time would have been much shorter, and held much less hard fact. It would be much more opinionated, and contained less jargon to make it more accessible to the general public.

So I was reading the article and I was delightfully surprised to see it was about abortion, contraception and the drugs associated with it. The topic of abortion always interested me and frustrated me at the same time. To keep from causing any political insults I will keep my opinion on the matter disclosed. However, what I thought was pretty crazy was that I was watching a tv show right before reading this article. In the show a teenage girl got pregnant and the topic of abortion came up. The girl opted to have an abortion but by the time she went to the clinic the baby was too far along to be legally allowed to abort. So back to the article. I was wondering if this new drug would be able to help in a scenario like this. Per say if a woman was too far along would this technique and drug be allowed to abort the baby or is it still considered illegal. The article didn’t address a scenario like that where a woman was pregnant for a while.

Also in class we spoke a lot about molecular structures and drawings. After reading this article, in my opinion, the molecular structure pictures provide in the article were unnecessary. They didn’t help me understand or visualize the article better. I felt as if they were just there. Like cool that’s what it looks like but it doesn’t help. I would have understood the article the same with or without the structures. Another thing is that the article didn’t really provide a conclusion. They kind of hopped around the idea of the potential of this drug but didn’t come to an exact and concrete conclusion.

But anyways I usually dislike science articles and the like as they confuse me. But this on the other hand was an interesting article on an interesting topic. The only thing is this article was written in 1971 so I don’t know about any of the updates they had in this study. If the article was written today there probably would have been different results and studies. I’m going to look into it a little further.

The article, “The New Mystery-Maybe Miracle Drug” by Lawrence Galton, that was published in The New York Times in 1971, discussed the incredible uses of the hormone Prostglandin. I thought that the article was very fascinating and even though it was written over 40 years ago, till this day, I wasn’t aware of some of these positive effects of this hormone. This article was written using very technical science terms. Even though I’ve taken my share of science classes and could understand some of the vocabulary, a lot of the information was very meticulous- especially when the author explained things on the molecular level. However, it was thorough and built from the basics. The molecular drawings that were featured in the article just provide a deeper understanding of the structure and depending on that, it gives light into how this molecule will react and affect with others.

The audience that was intended for this article was probably people who are scientifically inclined and are interested in healthcare innovations. Since this article is eight pages long and contains a lot of technical information, the people who would spend time reading it would be those who probably have some prior scientific knowledge and can understand such an article. In comparison to the science articles that are published in The Times today, this article is definitely longer and less geared toward the general public. For example, my hot topic was covered in The New York Times and I thought it included pretty specific scientific terms, however it was shorter and simpler than The Miracle Drug published in 1971.

I enjoyed the way the information through out the article was distributed. After mentioning that prostaglandin could be a form of birth control that is easily accessible by the mother- basically an abortion that is the control of the woman’s hands, the use of the hormone posed ethical issues. The article did not solely include the science behind the discoveries, but also the morality and how it would be viewed societally, especially during the 70s when birth control was no as accepted.  Aside from the  abortion issue, the article discussed disagreements between professionals which provided multiple perspectives on the matter.

In general, I enjoyed the content of the article because I am genuinely interested in the topic and if any of these discoveries were refuted by today.

As I began reading the article I was worried that it would be almost incomprehensible for me in terms of jargon. However, as soon as I began, it caught my attention quite quickly. Galton was very wise to start the article off by depicting how this hormone, that is to be explained all throughout the article, has helped historically in such a significant way. It gives the reader a picture in their mind so they can easily identify with it. It also proves how Galton has a great deal of knowledge sense since he was able to hook the readers by identifying the most interesting use for this hormone in the human body. If Galton hadn’t incorporated the example of using prostaglandins in inducing labor, I don’t think I would have been nearly as excited about reading the rest of the article.

Looking at the article and how it was written, as a whole, I really appreciated the manner Galton chose to convey the information: narrative form. Going through the history of prostaglandin then proceeding with how it was later manipulated to work in many different ways for the body, I felt like I learned the whole history, background, and all the functions, in such a short article, in and out. Even the way he phrased the content of the article, as if some sci-fi mystery was being solved, it kept me engaged all throughout. One clear example is, “As investigators have worked with increased supplies, they have been able to resolve a number of seemingly unrelated mysteries.” Then by using bold statements like “Even the reason for the high concentration of prostaglandins in human semen-as much as 100 times greater than anywhere else in the body-remains a mystery,” it shows Galton’s data and number sense and his well-rounded knowledge, not only on prostaglandin, but on all the elements that are working with it as well.

All in all, I found the article to be pretty informative and an enjoyable read. I am usually not fond of reading science related articles, but this one managed to capture my attention very well. I also learned quite a bit about how prostaglandins work and the uses of them in the body and was amazed by how versatile one hormone could be. I would probably recommend this article to someone who enjoys expanding their realm of knowledge in the medical field.