maandag 25 februari 2008

The Super Model

Nematodes are microscopic worms which occur in all habitats as free-living and parasites of human, plants and animals. The terrestrial free living nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, feeding on bacteria because of its good characters as a model organism got the title as the super model. Nematodes got more attention by the public after survival of the super model which was sent by NASA from the crash of the space shuttle Columbia in February 2003. The super model is also reached the news because it was the first multicellular animal of which entire genome was sequenced in 1998. It is a favored model organism for aging study. The supermodel is now on show in Nematolgoy laboratory and those who are afraid of aging are contacting Prof. Braeckman in Ledeganck to get information how far the research has gone and to know their chance.


Temesgen Addis Desta


2 opmerkingen:

Scico zei

Great topic, now I finally understand why there is a master year dedicated to nematodes. But in the first sentence: free-living is an adjective, I presume there should be a noun like: organism or nematode?
In the second sentence: you forgot the hyphen between free and living,
I suppose ‘elegans’ is a part of the name, shouldn’t it be in italics?
If I where you, I would change this long sentence into two shorter ones: The terrestrial free-living nematode, Caenorhabditis elegans, feeds on bacteria. Because of its good characters as organism, it got the title of super model. I would also drop the ‘the’ because you mention super model for the first time.
The third sentence: I think it is very long, it doesn’t read easily. So I would drop a few words: Nematodes got more attention by the public because of the survival of the super model in the crash of the Columbia in February 2003.
About the fourth sentence: a grammatical mistake, I suppose you should write: the super model has also reached instead of: is also reached. I should also put a definite article in front of entire genome.
Last sentence: I doubt if the construction: ‘is on show’ exists. I should write: the super model is the case study now, …
I also think that ‘are contacting’, is an advice, so you should write: ‘should contact’
Another remark I would like to make is: ‘to get information how far the research has gone’ I would change it into: ‘to get information about the research progress’ : you don’t talk about the ‘distance’ of a research, but the progress.
Final remark: ‘to know their chance’, I don’t exactly see the meaning of it. Shouldn’t their be something following? Perhaps something like: to know their chance on survival?
But overall, I think it’s a very interesting blog and probably a very interesting study.

Veerle Devulder

Scico zei

What can I add to Veerle's extensive feedback? I agree with Veerle's thorough remarks. By making these couple of adjustments your blog becomes even better to read.

I found it an interesting read combining many interesting trivia elements and humour.

olaf