User talk:TheOpaqueWalrus/sandbox

Assignment 1 Bacterial circadian rhythms critique
In general, this article has an issue with citations and tends to form conclusions without evidence. To start, the first section states the characteristics of circadian rhythms and information on cyanobacteria, but does not have any references attached to show that this information is real. The addition of a couple references would let the reader know that this section is reliable.

In the first sentence of the “History” section, the author makes a good statement about the assumption of circadian rhythms before the 1980s and adds a citation. However, for the rest of the paragraph, there are no more citations and the author explains why the afore mentioned assumption is wrong. Since there are no citations it would appear that the author is creating conclusions from their own mind rather than using information from reputable sources, which should not be done on Wikipedia.

The author continues to draw conclusions in the last paragraph of the “Adaptive Significance” section, particularly the last sentence. They conclude that all organisms may benefit from a circadian rhythm, but give no citation as to where this conclusion came from. Wikipedia is designed to relay information from reputable sources, not for the authors to draw conclusions, even if the authors conclusions may be correct.

Furthermore, none of the citations at the bottom of the page have hyperlinks, which make the source material much harder to find. A simple link on the referenced articles would make it easier for the reader. TheOpaqueWalrus (talk) 22:46, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

Assignment 2 Chlorosome
This subject is of high notability. Aside from the four sources already given on the page, there are plenty more papers discussing the nature and functionality of chlorosomes. To name a few, Oostergetel et al. and Orf et al. researched the general structure and light-harvesting properties of chlorosomes, while Frigaard et al. looked at the ability of the chlorosome to function throughout various protein changes. Further, understanding the chlorosome may lead to synthetic structures that can harvest and convert light energy to electrical energy.

However, this article has some deficiencies. First, the “structure” section of this article is immensely lacking. Although the introduction mentions that chlorosomes are ellipsoid shaped (this should be repeated in the structure section), it does not mention that there are also conical and irregular types. As well, this section mentions that there ten different proteins attached to the surrounding lipid membrane, which is true for Chlorobium tepidum but is not true for all members the phylum Chlorobi, where up to eleven proteins have been observed. Also, the names of these proteins don’t show up anywhere in the article. These names, or at least the naming scheme, should be added so that the reader can look up these proteins if they choose to. Further, there are no citations at all in this section, so the information given cannot be proven to be reliable.

A second area that needs work is the “alternative energy source” section. It simply states that synthetic chlorosomes may one day be able to convert light energy for our needs, but does not cite any sources or go into any detail into how this would be possible. Simply mentioning some sources would make this section better. For example, TiO2 and SnO2 were used to mimic the chemistry of bacteriochlorophylls, which are pigments within the chlorosome. In another study, large molecules, called zinc porphyrins, containing natural chlorosome functional groups were created in order to mimic the chemical structures found in chlorosomes. TheOpaqueWalrus (talk) 03:14, 26 September 2017 (UTC)