Reading Questions for "Gut Bacteria in Japanese People Borrowed Sushi-Digesting Genes from Ocean Bacteria" and "Gut Feelings"

  1. Note places in the text of the essay, "Gut Bacteria in Japanese People" where the author, Ed Yong, chooses active verbs (e.g., wielded, borrowed, emigrated). What is the effect of this choice? Does it help you to better understand the concept he's describing, make the writing more interesting to read, or neither? Explain your answer.
  2. What did you find the most difficult part of the essay to understand? What writing strategies did Yong use to make the scientific concept easier to grasp? Were these effective? If so, how? If not, what did you need clarified? How could he have done a better job of doing this?
  3. Near the end of the essay, Yong says, "For now, it's not clear how long these marine genes have been living inside the bowels of the Japanese" (190). Why is it important, in an essay about science, to explain what is not known? Shouldn't Yong focus on what the study his is summarizing does conclude? Why talk about what it doesn't tell us?
  4. In the podcast episode, "Gut Feelings" what techniques do Robert Krulwich and the producers, in the interview with Carl Zimmer, use to make the point about the bacteria in the human gut constituting another "organ" in our system? Why did the producers not have someone simply announce this fact close to the beginning of the episode? To what extent could you use these techniques in a writing assignment (in which you did not have the benefit of sound effects and vocal cues)?
  5. At one point in the episode, JadAbumrad, says "That's insane! That's not going to work." What idea prompts this exclamation? What kind of rhetorical technique are the producers using here? Why might this be an effective way of connecting to their audience?
  6. Why do Krulwich and Abumrad interrupt John Cryan to ask him to clarify what "mild water stress" means? Do you think this was important to their project in this episode? Why not just let him continue talking?
  7. How do the Radiolab producers integrate the mention of scientific papers into the episode? They obviously can't have a "Works Cited" page on the air, but do they give you enough information so that you could track down these studies? Do you think there is sufficient connections here to published scientific research or would you like more? Why or why not?