Zixi Chen
Mr Ippolito
Forensics AB Odd
16 November 2017
Current Event 8
Cancer Didn’t Kill Pablo Neruda, Panel Finds. Was It Murder?
Bonnefoy, Pascale. “Cancer Didn’t Kill Pablo Neruda, Panel Finds. Was It Murder?” The New York Times, The New York Times, 21 Oct. 2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/10/21/world/americas/pablo-neruda-death-forensic.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FForensic%2BScience&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=7&pgtype=collection.
The article “Cancer Didn’t Kill Pablo Neruda, Panel Finds. Was It Murder?” written by Pascale Bonnefoy describes the death of the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, a Nobel laureate. Neruda died on September 23rd, 1973 at the age of 69. His death happened two weeks after “a military coup toppled the leftist government of Salvador Allende” (Bonnefoy). His death certificate established that the cause of his death is cancer cachexia. However, in the year of 2011, Neruda’s former driver named Manuel Araya was interviewed by a Mexican magazine and claimed that “doctors at private clinic in Santiago where Neruda was being treated poisoned him by injecting an unknown substance into his stomach” (Bonnefoy). The forensic scientists also found suspicious things about this case after further investigation. One forensic scientist said “There was no indication of cachexia. He was an obese man at the time of death. All other circumstances in his last phase of life pointed to some kind of infection” (Bonnefoy). Many people agreed that this case was more complex that a cancer now.
The contents in this article is very relevant to the forensics class. The investigation that took place in this case had similarities to the CSI cases and the crime scene lab done in the class. The real detectives and investigators analyzed dead body and made connections between all of the different details in the case. The case described in the article may have a small negative impact on society because people may fear that similar things will happen to people around them in the hospitals.
This article had many good things in it. For example, it listed specific years and the names of people involved in the case for its credibility. Also, it used quotes from experts to provide some direct information to the readers. The only weakness in this article is that it lacks details about information on the victim’s family and past relationships with other people. It may be helpful to do so in order for the readers to understand the contents better. I would suggest the author of this article to include more details about the results from the analysis of the body and more information about the main character and his relationship to other people.
9 comments:
Hana Eddib 11/16/17
Forensics current event 8
Bonnefoy, Pascale. “Cancer Didn’t Kill Pablo Neruda, Panel Finds. Was It Murder?” The New York Times, 21 Oct. 2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/10/21/world/americas/pablo-neruda-death-forensic.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FForensic+Science&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=7&pgtype=collection.
Zixi’s review was very well written. I appreciated that she gave us background information about
Who Pablo Neruda was as I had no prior knowledge of him. I also appreciated that she gave us
direct quote from the article as to what exactly the driver said about his claim. The fact that she
included specific factors that clarified the suspicion behind Neruda’s cause of death was also
very helpful.
While Zixi did a great job with her review, there were two aspects she could improve on. Firstly,
I wish she would’ve explained what cancer cachexia is. Although I know what cancer is, I am
not familiar with this type and therefor, I do not know its symptoms. I also wish she could’ve
mentioned who the forensic scientists were that were investigating this case. If she included
where they were from or who they were, it might’ve helped with specificity.
Overall Zixi did a good job with her article. I was surprised to learn it could’ve been the people treating Neruda who could’ve killed him.
Andrew Rotchford
11/16/17
Forensics current event 8
Bonnefoy, Pascale. “Cancer Didn’t Kill Pablo Neruda, Panel Finds. Was It Murder?” The New York Times, 21 Oct. 2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/10/21/world/americas/pablo-neruda-death-forensic.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FForensic+Science&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=7&pgtype=collection.
Zixi’s review was very well written. The first thing that she did well was give us some background information about who Pablo Neruda I had no idea who he was and I like that she gave information about him so the reader can have understanding.She did a great job when using quotes from the article to use it to help her explain exactly what happened to the driver.
Even though she did a excellent job in her review I would like to give her 2 tips that she could improve on. First I wish you would explain what cachexia is. I know that is cancer but I'm not familiar with the type or the symptoms.The second thing that she could have done was I wanted to know more about her opinion about the article not just quotes and what it was about.
In the end Zixi did a great job with her articIe. I was surprised to learn that the people that treat you could kill you.
Bonnefoy, Pascale. “Cancer Didn’t Kill Pablo Neruda, Panel Finds. Was It Murder?” The New York Times, The New York Times, 21 Oct. 2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/10/21/world/americas/pablo-neruda-death-forensic.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FForensic%2BScience&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=7&pgtype=collection.
Zixi’s review of the article, “Cancer Didn’t Kill Pablo Neruda, Panel Finds. Was It Murder?” was very well written. There were many things which were very good, for example, I thought that she used quotes from the article very well which helped in better understanding the content of the article. I thought that she also did a good job in connecting the case, which the article discussed, to our crime scene investigation lab pointing out the similarities. I also thought that Zixi did a good job in summarizing the article without excessive details while also being able to explain what the article was about and what the author discussed as well.
Although Zixi’s review of the article was very good overall, I thought that there were a few things which could have been added in order to improve her review. Although she was able to incorporate quotes from the article well, I thought that it would have also been helpful to include more quotes from other forensic scientists written about in the article. I also thought that it would have been good if she had elaborated more on how the case described in the article had a minor negative impact on society.
Zixi’s review of the article, “Cancer Didn’t Kill Pablo Neruda, Panel Finds. Was It Murder?” was very informative and interesting to read. From her review of the article, I was able to become more informed on how there can often be misjudgments when determining the death of a person. However, when looked at in more detail by someone such as a forensic scientist, what was thought to be the cause of death, such as cancer, could actually be the result of a murder.
Lily Monahan
November 15th, 2017
Forensics current event 8
Bonnefoy, Pascale. “Cancer Didn’t Kill Pablo Neruda, Panel Finds. Was It Murder?” The New York Times, 21 Oct. 2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/10/21/world/americas/pablo-neruda-death-forensic.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FForensic+Science&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=7&pgtype=collection.
Zixi wrote a very clear and concise review of the article. She provided a lot of useful background information about Pablo Neruda that made things more understandable I also appreciated that she gave us a lot of information about Neruda because I didn’t know who he was. The incorporation of quotes also made things much more understandable.
One thing I would recommend is more information on the background research on this case s it could relate to forensics. I also don’t know specifically what what cancer cachexia is, so if that was explained It would have made the review more informative.
Zixi wrote a great review overall, and I was interested that it may have been the people helping Neruda who may have killed him.
Scott McGrath
11/16/17
Current Event 8
www.nytimes.com/2017/10/21/world/americas/pablo-neruda-death-forensic.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FForensic%2BScience&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=7&pgtype=collection.
Zixi did a really good job reviewing this article about the controversy surrounding Pablo Neruda’s death. Neruda was a Chilean poet who died from “cancer” in 1973. However, his chauffeur recently went out and said that the clinic he was receiving treatment at had poisoned him by injecting a poison into his stomach. Forensic scientists looked further into this, and said the type of cancer he “died” of were not found in his body, and that foul play was more than a possibility. Zixi did a very good job explaining the complexity of this case in simple terms so us readers would find it easier to comprehend. She also did a very good job citing the author after all the information she discussed. I also really liked how she talked about the positives and negatives of the article, in her opinion. That added a personal level to her review.
There are a few things I think could do with some work. Firstly, the pacing seems a little wrong, and the whole article flows a little weirdly. Lastly, a little more information about the actual case itself would be appreciated. I know I said that she provided a good background, and that she did, but there wasn't much past an overview.
I think this article is interesting because it shows how no case is truly closed. At any point in time something can be reexamined and a different answer can be obtained. Overall, Zixi did a very good job reviewing this article
Ayten El-Hennawy
11/16/17
Current Event 8
Bonnefoy, Pascale. “Cancer Didn’t Kill Pablo Neruda, Panel Finds. Was It Murder?” The New York Times, 21 Oct. 2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/10/21/world/americas/pablo-neruda-death-forensic.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FForensic+Science&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=7&pgtype=collection.
Zixi's review of the article “Cancer Didn’t Kill Pablo Neruda, Panel Finds. Was It Murder?” was very well written and interesting to read. I liked how Ziki explained what exactly the article was talking about and provided the reader with some background information as well. I also liked how she included quotes throughout her review from the article which the reader could refer to. Lastly, I liked how she connected the article with our case studies and lab which was done in class.
Although her review was great, I think it would’ve been better to elaborate more on how the article may have a negative impact on our society in her second paragraph to make it more interesting. I also think that it would’ve been nice if she explained what exactly Cancer cachexia is as some readers may have no idea what type of cancer that is.
I thought this review was very interesting as it really showed me how some forensic scientists may actually misjudge a person’s death considering they have no idea about what really happened. I also think it’s crazy how Neruda may have actually not just died from cance
"Virtual Case Notes: Sweat, Skin Secretions Could Contain Chemical 'Password' for Future Mobile Authentication." Forensic Magazine, 16 Nov. 2017, www.forensicmag.com/news/2017/11/virtual-case-notes-sweat-skin-secretions-could-contain-chemical-password-future-mobile.
The article “Virtual Case Notes: Sweat, Skin Secretions Could Contain Chemical 'Password' for Future Mobile Authentication” by Laura French talks about how new research is showing that in the future the amount of sweat on your skin may have an impact on unlocking your phone. The sweat would make an impact in the unlocking of phones because of the presence of something called metabolites which are the products of what we eat that can be found in our sweat. They talked about how the metabolites in our skin change based on the food we eat and that through this the “password to our phone would change all the time. ”The way that the article presented what metabolites are made a lot of sense and made a lot of what they talked about understandable. The use of quotes in the article helped a lot as it made what the scientists were talking about make more sense as they themselves were the ones explaining. Their explanation how the “password” would change was very interesting and made the article more interesting.
One thing that I wish the article talked about was how long it may be until this sort of technology is implemented in mainstream products. A timeline would have helped to garner more interest in this as it would be an alternative to the new face scanning that Apple has in their new iPhone. It would have been nice if they compared this to new things such as face scanning and talked about if one is better than another. The comparison would have been interesting to learn about as it seems that there are some flaws in the face scan system and this seems like it would be a lot harder to cheat.
Overall this article was well written and provided many good quotations and presented a lot of data about how metabolites work and what makes them so special. One thing that really stood out to me was that, at least on paper, this seems like a competitor to face scanning which I am not a fan of so this interested me a lot.
Bonnefoy, Pascale. “Cancer Didn’t Kill Pablo Neruda, Panel Finds. Was It Murder?” The New York Times, The New York Times, 21 Oct. 2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/10/21/world/americas/pablo-neruda-death-forensic.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FForensic%2BScience&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=7&pgtype=collection.
Zixi’s review of “Cancer Didn’t Kill Pablo Neruda, Panel Finds. Was It Murder?” was a very interesting review. First of all, it really helped that she had three different quotes in her review, talking about what the driver of Pablo Neruda thought. In addition, the fact that she had a lot of details about the type of cancer thought to have killed Pablo Neruda aided me in understanding this topic better and gave me some additional information about it. Finally, Zixi did a really good job on going even further into the topic and talking about why this topic is important to the other forensics case.
Although this review was very interesting, one way it could have been made better is that Zixi could have gone back through the review and checked for spelling and grammar errors so that the review was more sophisticated. By reading it over, she could have avoided this problem and made her review more coherent. Moreover, I would have added more information on why exactly there are some people that think that he was murdered as she talked about it a little bit but never fully went into it. By adding one or two sentences about that topic she could have made her review even more thorough.
Overall, this review was captivating and thought-provoking. I had never heard about this this supposed murder case, so I was intrigued when I read Zixi’s review. Thus, learning about this was very enlightening and taught me many new things. Reading this review made me realize that even if a reason of death is given, it can always be changed, nothing is irrevocable.
Kevin Formato
11/16/17
Current Event 8
www.nytimes.com/2017/10/21/world/americas/pablo-neruda-death-forensic.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FForensic%2BScience&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=7&pgtype=collection.
I really enjoyed Zixi's review “Cancer Didn’t Kill Pablo Neruda, Panel Finds. Was It Murder?” she did a great job of describing how he died in on September 23rd, 1973 at the age of 69. But years later his driver Manuel Araya said that the clinic that he was treating him and the forensic scientists found lots of weird things during the investigation. One forensic scientist said “There was no indication of cachexia. He was an obese man at the time of death. All other circumstances in his last phase of life pointed to some kind of infection”. If I had to fix anything I would add more about the forensic process and more about more about maybe Pablo Neruda to add more background to the article. Overall I thought it was a well written article and learned how forensics can help solve mysteries from years ago.
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