Faraz Arastu

English 3301

5/24/13

Research Article Analysis

Word Count: 633

Carey, Allison F. et al. "Odorant Reception in the Malaria Mosquito Anopheles Gambiae." Nature 464 (2010): 66-71.

In order to find this article, I used the Google Scholar service provided by Google to search for scholarly publications. On the main page, I bulleted ‘Articles’ and unchecked ‘include patents,’ since this would include extraneous documents. The keywords I used to search were ‘Anopheles mosquito and host.’ This search returned several hits dating back to 1976. In light of this, I refined my search using the custom date range tool in the left-hand toolbar to search only for articles from 2010 to present. Searching under the refined conditions led me to this article on mosquito detection of human hosts. To actually access this article, I went to the NU library homepage, clicked ‘Find,’ then ‘A to Z Index,’ then ‘Database Policies and Terms,’ and ‘Nature Journals Online Terms and Use.’ Clicking the red ‘Nature Journals Online’ hyperlink brought me to Nature’s subscriber homepage where I searched the title of this article and accessed it via the ‘Download PDF’ link.

In this article, the researchers analyzed odor receptors (ORs) in the A. gambiae mosquito as potential targets for controlling malaria transmission. They hypothesized that specific ORs adapt this species to finding human hosts and stimulating egg-laying behavior. Their research compares the ORs of A. gambiae to those of the fruit fly to show the specificity of these mosquitos in detecting human scents over other species. This understanding could lead to potent strategies in mosquito control.

The researchers conducted a study to test A. gambiae’s response to different human scents. The numerical results were expressed graphically using several different visual representations. The authors used a bar graph, bubble plot, heat map, and standard curves as well as chemical structures of the scents being tested. These visual tools were used to represent their data in a more accessible way to a scientific audience. In comparison to charts with numbers, these graphics show direct comparisons with the variables being tested. The researchers discussed their experimental procedures in the detailed “Methods” section so that others can reproduce their data. This increases the validity and acceptance of the results in the scientific community. Using their data, they formed conclusions about the research in a technical “Discussion” section. Here they interpret the results, present their value, and suggest future experiments and applications of their study.

Different members of the discourse community for whom this article is meant would use the information presented here in one of two main ways. It is likely that most viewers would read the abstract, since this highlights the key points of the research and is generally how users assess whether they are interested in the rest of the content. Some viewers would move on directly to the “Discussion” section where the results are briefly summarized and extensively interpreted. This is where the users may apply the research to a real-world problem, e.g. designing a product, creating a service, enhancing a method, or developing a protocol. Another group of users would, instead, visit the “Methods” section in more detail, whereby they may design more extensive research on the subject or use alternative procedures for acquiring the data. With this article, viewers could test more scents or test them on different species for instance.

In scientific journals, each publication typically has its own unique reference format. Nature magazine is no exception. Even if the cited articles appear in different journals – with different formats – they are all cited in Nature’s format. The references for this article from 2010 are mostly within five years of the publication date with few exceptions. This is also valued in the scientific community because current information is thought to be more accurate and reproducible.