User:Isabellaiwanicki/sandbox

This is my sandbox!

Joseph Priestley
Questions to consider:


 * Is everything in the article relevant to the article topic? Is there anything that distracted you?

Yes, everything seems to be relevant to the article topic because it is a broad overview of Joseph Priestley's life. However, I do think that there should be more information about his experiments with air, because the section that goes into detail about that is quite short in comparison to how important it was. His "discovery" of oxygen is credited in the first paragraph, meaning that the authors obviously knew it was something to be emphasized about Joseph Priestley, so I think that more information on those particular experiments within the article is needed.


 * Is the article neutral? Are there any claims, or frames, that appear heavily biased toward a particular position?

I think the article was generally neutral. However, when there were discussions about his philosophy, authors touched on criticism of his work and also touched on similarities between his work and others. I think by making connections between the two philosophies, it is difficult to have a neutral opinion. Drawing conclusions and making assumptions between two works is an author bias even if the connections seem obvious.


 * Check a few citations. Do the links work? Does the source support the claims in the article?

Not all the citations are full references. Also, there are a few references that do not give the full reference, instead referencing something above them that seems to have been removed? That means that full references aren't always included, but the majority of claims are still cited. There also seems to be quite a few references to the same person, Schofield. I am not sure that having so many references to one book by one person within the article is necessarily good, but the article is interspersed with plenty of other references so I think it's fine.

The Royal Society
Questions to consider:


 * Is everything in the article relevant to the article topic? Is there anything that distracted you?

I think everything is relevant; however, there should have been a better organizational strategy with sub-headings for specific events, rather than grouping people and events by centennials. That may allow for better specificity, and make it easier for readers to find information on specific events rather than having to comb through a hundred years. Also, organizing by large chunks of time like that may be too general and detracts from the information. I think that specificity would help the article a lot here.


 * Is the article neutral? Are there any claims, or frames, that appear heavily biased toward a particular position?

The article seems neutral.


 * Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented?

I think there could be more information about the modern day Royal Society.


 * Is each fact referenced with an appropriate, reliable reference? Where does the information come from? Are these neutral sources? If biased, is that bias noted?

Yes, most facts are referenced. A lot of the information comes from the Royal Society itself, and sources are supposed to come from independant works. Therefore, some of the information is not neutral, because it comes from the subject.


 * Is any information out of date? Is anything missing that could be added?

When discussing the Fellows of the Royal Society, the author uses the word "currently" several times which signifies that the information could be out of date. Therefore, the information could be updated with new sources, or the author could say the year that the information goes up to. This goes back to the point I made that information about the modern day Royal Society seems to be underrepresented- there are places for a lot more information and specificity here.

Research
Potential Topics to look into:


 * Modern Day Scientific Patents
 * 1800s farm Inventions -
 * History of a scientific journal -Centaurus
 * 1776 in Paleontology

I could look into specific discoveries that happened during that year- but may be too broad? I could use that as a starting off point to find one specific discovery.


 * Axiidea - infraorder of crustaceans

A specific infraorder of burrowing shrimp! Very cool. A narrow topic, as it was just separated from another infraorder, and there will be scientific papers on them. There will be a lot to contribute- I can do a section on their burrowing patterns, development, morphology, etc. I can look at other crustacean's wikipedia pages to know what I should include about this specific infraorder.

Axiidea
Axiidea is an infraorder of decapod crustaceans. Axiidea and Gebiidea are divergent infraoders of the former infraorder Thalassinidea. Both infraorders which have converged ecologically and morphologically as burrowing forms. It is now widely believed that these two infraorders represent two distinct lineages separate from one another; however, this separation occurred in 2009 based on molecular evidence and as a result, much of the literature and research surrounding these infraorders still refers to the Axiidea and Gebiidea in combination as "thalassinidean" for the sake of clarity and reference. This division based on molecular evidence is consistent with the groupings proposed by Robert Gurney in 1938 based on larval developmental stages.

The Axiidea infraorder is colloquially known as mud or ghost shrimps, or burrowing shrimp ; however, these decapods are only distantly related to shrimp. Axiidea are noted for the burrows with complex architecture that they make in the ocean floor sediment. These burrows can be classified based off of their external characteristics in the sediment as well as the trophic group that the species falls into. The population density of most species of Axiidea tends to be high, so these organisms play an an important role in the biogeochemical processes of the ocean floor sediments, and in the creation of habitats that favor various marine benthic communities.

Families
The Axiidea infraorder is comprised of the following families:


 * Axiidae Huxley, 1879
 * Callianassidae Dana, 1852
 * Callianideidae Kossmann, 1880
 * Ctenochelidae Manning and Felder, 1991
 * Micheleidae Sakai, 1992
 * Strahlaxiidae Poore, 1994

A few subfamilies of Axiidea have been proposed to become families, but have not for a variety of reasons. These include the Gourretiidae subfamily, discovered by Sakai in 1999, which has been proposed to become a family rather than a subfamily to the the Ctenochelidae, but phylogenetic analyses do not yet support that proposal. Similarly, molecular studies do not support the Eiconaxiidae subfamily being separate from family Axiidae. There is also no molecular evidence to separate the Calocardidae subfamily from the family Axiidae.

Description
The length of an adult Axiidea can range from about 1.5 centimeters in some species, to over 35 centimeters in other species. The color of the Axiidea can range a variety of colors, including white, pink, red, orange, and dark brown. The rostrum can range from being nearly invisible, to fairly rigid and extending past the eyes. The carapace also ranges from fairly rigid to transparent, showing the organs underneath. Axiidea can range from having a well-calcified exoskeleton, to barely calcified elongated exoskeletons, which show an adaptation to burrowing in certain species.

The sex of the Axiidea can be determined by the pleopod structure on the underbelly of the organism. This structure is underdeveloped or absent in the males. The sex ratio in most species of Axiidea tends to be 1:1, although in certain habitats one sex can slightly outnumber the other.

Duration of egg incubation periods, and therefore also larval development, is dependent on the environmental factors surrounding the habitat of each individual species. Environmental factors tend to include developmental constraints, salinity of the marine environment, and temperature of the water. Furthermore, the duration of the zoeal, or larval, phase ranges quite a bit, and has been estimated to last as little as 2 to 3 days in some species of Axiidea, to 5 to 6 months in other species. The pre-zoeal hatching stage is marked by poor swimming ability and lack of setae, and the zoeal stages are planktonic. The megalopa stage represents the transition from plankton to their benthic habitats, and morphological development is marked by the growth of functional mouthparts resembling those of juveniles or adults.

Burrows
Burrows can be divided into two groups in terms of external characteristics, depending on the existence of a mound of sediment around the entrance of the burrow. These two groups can be further divided based on whether they contain plant material within the burrow. Burrows tend to be narrow, and can range from Y or U shaped in certain species, to intricate branching tunnels and deep wells in other species.

Burrows can also differ within the classifications of external characteristics, based on the feeding mode for each organism. There are three general trophic groups that the families within the infraorder Axiidea can fall into. The first trophic group are the detritophages, or deposit feeders. The other two trophic groups are the drift catchers, which collect plant matter that drifts based on ocean currents, and the suspension feeders, which feed on plant matter that is suspended in the water.

Drift catcher burrows tend to lack the external characteristic of the mound around the entrance of the burrow, and their burrows tend to be very deep and contain chambers that are filled with seagrasses and other sea debris. Suspension feeder burrows tend to be in the Y or U shapes, and also lack seagrasses and debris within them in contrast to the drift catchers; furthermore, the sediment within the lower parts of these burrows can also serve as food for the suspension feeders. The feeding mode affects the burrow, because Axiidea consume amounts of sediment, and the sediment that is rejected makes up parts of the burrow. The seagrasses consumed by the Axiidea are therefore present in the burrows and provide a way to classify the species. The burrows created by detritophage species of Axiidea are more likely to change over the life of the organism than the burrows of filter feeders, because detritophage Axiidea can build new passages and chambers over the course of their feeding.

Each burrow is typically inhabited by one organism, however, certain species of Axiidea live in pairs.

Distribution and Ecology
Axiidea typically live in marine environments with soft-bottom sediments. Axiidea are found in most oceans and seas, except for high latitude polar seas. Distribution shows a clear gradient based on latitude, with low species numbers at higher latitudes and higher species numbers in low latitudes. Therefore, Axiidea are most diverse in temperate to tropical regions. Within the intertidal regions, Axiidea can be used as fishing bait or even for human consumption. Axiidea rarely range into the deep sea with depths more than 2000 meters, instead with 95% of species preferring the shallow water of intertidal or subtidal (<200m) areas.

Scipedia Ideas

 * research the molecular studies done that allows the researches to claim family versus subfamily- discuss modern technology and how it changes dynamics of research and the slow transition to build up information under new terms- inhibits research process
 * Most information is classified under Thalassinidea, which makes it difficult to search for information only pertaining to the Axiidea
 * Get some cool old diagrams! and compare them to moderns depictions!

Article Round 2!
1) Hermann Siemens- Twin studies, Nazi eugenics - Hermann Werner Siemens

2) Curtis Merriman- Twin studies, no Wikipedia article

What I plan to contribute to the Hermann Siemens page is more in depth information about his Twin Studies, more information about his eugenics, background information on his life, and his professional career.

Hermann Werner Siemens
Hermann Werner Siemens (20 August 1891 in Charlottenburg – 21 December 1969 in Leiden[1]) was a German dermatologist who first described many skin diseases and was one of the inventors of the twin study.

Early Life & Career
Siemens studied at Berlin and Munich universities, receiving his doctorate in 1918.

Siemans was instituted as the first professor of the new dermatology department in 1929 at the University of Lieden. Siemans was the student of J. Jadssohn in Breslau and of von Zumbusch in in Munich. At the point of his instation, Siemans was well known for his twin studies and work on genetics in dermatology. While a professor at Lieden, Siemans continued researching genetics, but his department worked mainly as a clinic, where he and his team carried out clinical trials. Among those clinical trials were research on the topical "right-left-method", which involved the application of two different kinds of medicine to either half of the body. While at Lieden, Siemens was among those who protested against Nazi activities. Siemens retired in 1964 and was succeeded by his formal pupil, M. K. Polano, who was head of the Dermatology Department at the Municipal Hospital in the Hague.

The University of Liepzig chose Siemans for the position of Chairman of Dermatology on the basis of his scientific contributions; however, Siemans was not a member of the NSDAP and his research was not well-liked by the Nazi Party. Sieman's research into hereditary diseases at this time gained criticism within the Nazis for not exploring far enough into the racial aspects of genetics. As a result, the Commission on Higher Education forced the appointment of a different researcher who belonged to the NSDAP, Brodo Spiethoff, and the position was taken away from Siemans.

Diseases named after Siemens

 * Christ-Siemens-Touraine syndrome (Hypohidrotic ectodermal dysplasia
 * Hallopeau-Siemens syndrome (Recessive dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa
 * Ichthyosis bullosa of Siemens
 * Siemens' syndrome 1 (Keratosis follicularis spinulosa decalvans)
 * Bloch Siemens syndrome (Incontinentia pigmenti)

"Zwillingspathologie" (Twin Pathology)
The difference between identical twins and fraternal twins is the basis of the classical Twin Method, and first appeared in Siemen's work "Zwillingspathologie", or "Twin Pathology", in 1924.

While the twin method is generally attributed to Francis Galton's 1875 article "The History of Twins, as a Criterion of The Relative Powers of Nature and Nurture", Galton did not suggest the comparison between identical (monozygotic) and fraternal (dizygotic) twins; instead, Galton suggested using twins to test the power of the environment to change the similarity level between identical twins. Galton's article considered environmental factors such as social conditions and education; here, Galton faced objection that these environmental conditions were only a small part of the circumstances that could affect similarity of twins.

Curtis Merriman, an assistant professor of Education at the University of Wisconsin, also published a report called "Psychological Monographs" on the twin method describing the difference between the identical and fraternal twins in 1924; however, Merrimen did not suggest that the difference between identical and fraternal twins could be used to explore hereditary traits and only interpreted his results as evidence for two types of twins.

Siemens' work introduced the classical "Twin Method", which is recognized as highly influential by current Twin Studies experts in genetics. Hermann Werner Siemens was the first researcher to attempt to determine the roles of genetics and environment in the specific case of naevi, which are moles or birthmarks. While Siemens focused on dermatological phenotypes, he also explored psychological features using twin studies. An example of this research was on the academic performance of identical and fraternal twins: His research found that identical twins were more likely to have a similar performance in school than fraternal twins.

Siemens wrote in "Zwillingspathologie" about his findings:"'If an illness is regularly dominant, then both of the identical twins either suffer from it or are free from it.. �9 the nonidentical twins correlate as the siblings of a two-child family .... With the help of twin pathology, we found a possible way to judge hereditary influence on the investigated features .... The assessment is based on the comparison of the findings in identical and nonidentical twins.'"His research included reporting on similarities in skin traits in Monozygotic twins, inclding naevi among other dermatological traits. Within Siemens' research, he reported monozygotic twins having a higher concordance in naevus counts compared with siblings. Siemen's research into twin studies was well before the structure of DNA was discovered, and as a result, his work was highly useful in compiling a detailed compilation of dermatological phenotypes for both monozygotic and dizygotic twins.

Siemens commented about his work in the 1920s, "twins of one egg origin will be of immense value for geneticists and psychologists."

Reception in Europe
Not all researchers in the 1920s fully accepted Siemens' work initially. Siemens' research was criticized for proposing that identical twins had to have almost total concordance of a dermatological trait in order for the trait to be hereditary. Siemens argued that his work could be used to assess hereditary influence on features that were only partially determined by genetics rather than environment.

"Foundations of Genetics, Racial Hygiene and Population Policy"
Siemens was a major figure in the german racial Hygeiene movement by the early 1920s; Siemens later supported the Nazis and their racial policies. As a result, some contemporary geneticists have omitted Siemens from the history of twin studies research as a form of revision by omission.

Siemens wrote in 1937, "“Since the National Socialist seizure of power the political goals that we, the racial hygienists, are in favor of, have now become a part—and not the least important one—of the German government program. ‘Racial hygiene as a utopian dream’ became ‘Racial hygiene as political program’. . . . Our future will be governed by racial hygiene—or it will not exist at all.'"In regards to the works of Francis Galton, Siemens commented in 1937, "“Galton already saw the possibility of integrating racial-hygienic ideals—just like a new religion—into the national conscious. The national [völkische] state, however, is now called on to be really serious about it. According to its Führer, it is the obligation of the national state ‘to declare children as a people’s most precious commodity’ so that ‘it will one day be considered reprehensible to withhold healthy children from the nation [emphasis in original].’”"