Essay
“So Much More Than Plasma and Poison” is an article written by Natalie Angier who mainly discusses the jellyfish has many things amazing besides poison. However, studies have shown that the jellyfish has a lot of things that the common people do not know. In addition, if people look beyond the jellyfish’s poison, they will find an amazing animal. So, there are many points that the author does not clarify very well by giving evidences, which are how ancient the jellyfish is, the matrix eyes that it has, the nervous system and the secret of the Australian box jellyfish’s attack to humans.
The jellyfish is one of the animals that people have negative point of views about because of what the jellyfish does to people on the coasts, but the poison of the jellyfish is not always strong. The jellyfish has a gooey body. Also, it shimmers and glows. Moreover, it has an ambiguous round shape because it is difficult to find the head, the heart, the back, the legs and how these things function. The jellyfish is one of the ancient creatures as same as the earliest bony fish; it has appeared before the dinosaurs. Therefore, according to David J. Albert, a jellyfish expert at the Roscoe Bay Marine Biological Laboratory in Vancouver, British Columbia, “Jellyfish are the most ancient multiorgan animal on earth.” (Angier, 2011) Another thing, Dr. Garm and his colleagues found that the jellyfish has 24 eyes and they distinguish four types and two of them are similar to the human’s eyes. Besides its 24 eyes, it has a unique and a little bit complicated nervous system that does not have a clear semblance.
In addition, the jellyfish has a brain because of the reactions that the jellyfish make when it faces tides and by avoiding fresh water in summer. As a result of that, the jellyfish is equal to dolphins in popularity. Therefore, people can make money from it by moving it to any qualified environment where it can grow easily. There are a variety of sizes that the adult jellyfish has. The size differs from size of a fingernail to 8 to 10 feet wide for the bell and 100 or more feet for the tentacles trailing behind it. (Angier, 2011) This animal stays and feeds itself among the underwater trees. It goes down to the muddy bottom and hides there.
The article is directed to all people; the author starts his introduction by giving his own experiences about jellyfish as a story and that is good because when the article like story, it gets much easier for the reader to recall the information. However, there is something missing at the beginning of the introduction that confuses the reader a little bit. Also, when she mentions that the jellyfish relates to the ancient ages, she does not give any evidences that the jellyfish is roughly twice as old as the earliest bony fish and three times the age of the first dinosaurs. (Angier, 2011) She just throws this information without giving any evidence. Moreover, when she talks about jellyfish’ eyes and that they have a matrix of 24 eyes, she does not specify where they are located. Are these eyes in groups? Or are they separate? These are some questions that come to the reader’s mind especially if s/he does not know anything about the topic. In addition, she discusses the nervous system and he describes it as a wise that the jellyfish lacks any semblance of the central nervous system, but he does not explain why there is a wise on its central nervous system.
Another thing that the author does not demonstrate that why the Australian box jellyfish sometimes attacks humans though it has no intention of eating humans. At the end of the article, there is no conclusion. She does not restate the main points that she mentions in the whole article. Therefore, the reader cannot remember what the author talks in the beginning of this article. The purpose of the conclusion is to make the reader recall what has read.
To sum up, this article demonstrates the beauty of the jellyfish and how people look at the jellyfish as dangerous animal; whereas, it has many things are hidden in and regular people do not know about them. For example, how ancient the jellyfish is and how fabulous its eyes are. Also, it has unusual nervous system. Besides that, the actions, which are resulted from the jellyfish, confirm that it has a brain. When the jellyfish becomes popular, some people start exhibiting it to the public in order to make money because it goes next to the dolphins in popularity. In the end, the author does great job by giving good explanation while some of them are still ambiguous. The missing part at the beginning of the introduction is one point that still unclear. Also, how old the jellyfish is and the how its eyes complicated. The last thing is the purpose of attacking humans by the Australian box jellyfish.
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