CE #8

Date: 2/4/12

Name: Juan Diaz 702

Current Events Journal

Title:  Warm and Furry, but They Pack a Toxic Punch

Author:  Natalie Angier

Source: The New York Times.

The topic of the article is Animals

The main idea of the article is:  The main idea of this article is that there is an animal in Africa called the African Crested Rat which is rare because its most used defense is to use venom, so it is explained how scientists think the animal could have acquired such traits.

 (Implied)

The author’s purpose for writing this article is to Inform of the defenses of this new animal named the African crested rat, and while the author wrote it he included other defenses of the animals that use the similar defense as the animal for example, the skunks or Capuchin monkeys.

The author’s perspective in this article is objective because in the story many examples of animals with similar defenses are given to the reader, and also there’s the reason that the author is describing a subject not arguing about a topic.

The pattern of organization of the article is Compare and Contrast

The reason the author chose this pattern for the article is to give the topic in this article which is the African Crested Rat and it started giving examples and comparing them to the African Crested Rat, for instance the snakes with the venom.

The text features included in the article are:  The text features in this article are the title which is mostly used to give the main idea and in this case it doesn’t it just gives the description of the animal. Another is that in the text the author is inferring phrases the animals might say when in a situation.

This article is about (a summary in your own words) this article is about how the African crested Rat is a species that is rare because with one little bite to his skin there is enough venom to kill a predator or get him sick. Also those scientists think that an earlier version of this animal might have rubbed their skin on venomous trees, hence the venom got trapped there for later use.

The significance (importance) of this article is this article is important because it is mentioning the defense of an animal that isn’t commonly mentioned and how it might have a similar defense that most animals use like snakes or frogs; however the African Crested Rat’s only defense is venom while snakes are teeth and frogs are their legs. This could have been a sign of evolution in the species.

What I learned from this article is  The topic that I learned in this article was that Capuchin Monkeys go through excruciating pain just to have parasites be prevented from entering their body. Also that the most common reason that skunks are beginning to be seen as road kills are because they have thought that cars are predators so they defend themselves.

What I liked about this article What I liked about this article was that most articles I have read for current events are mostly about politics or other humanly issues while this article is more for science then the others are.

What I did not like about it What I didn’t like about this article is that when I saw the article and read the beginning paragraph I inferred that this article was going to be about the African Crested Rat while most of it was just describing other defenses of a variety of different animals.

Who should read this article and why  I think anyone who is interested in exotic animals would read this because they can be informed of it and become even more interested I in it.

This article reminds me of (text-to-self) I would relate this book to myself because in my opinion if there is a conflict that I know is way out of hand I would run instead of stay and win a losing fight.

This article relates to me because (Text-to-text) this article reminds me of a book I once read about how some dogs react to specific moments like being frightened or being in an action moment.

(Text-to-world) This article reminds of how we humans have our own way of defending ourselves for example the hormone of adrenaline and the Fight or flight response in which to run away or stay and fight.

New vocabulary I learned

Word Context Clues Meaning

1. Wrests   “And from bark wrests such bite it makes lions fall over”   To Twist

2. Anoxic “Skunks and zorilles mimic the sulfurous, anoxic stink of a swamp.”    Toxic, low O2

3.  Thiol “at the heart of skunk spray is thiol, the signature of high hydrogen and low O2…”high in lethal hydrogen and low on oxygen