h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Amber - A680168
Author: Azara - U172739

I hope that if this gets through Peer Review it can replace the short entry on amber Jewellery by the Old Writing Team, at A2971

Azara

Excellent article. The only question I have is where does green amber fit in? Is it the same as orange amber? Just curious!

FC

Just re-read it properly as a sub! I'd change around 'film and book Jurassic Park', as I'm pretty certain the book came first. It might also be an idea to add that its highly unlikely that any DNA would be extracted as it is likely to have degraded over the years...

erm... not sure if this is what to type in peer review, but in future, be careful of your punctuation around footnotes, any comma, fullstop or whatever should be after the number, not before it. Sorry, pet peeve of mine. But your coding otherwise seems flawless, and as I said it is a highly interesting article. Should have no trouble at all getting in the guide!

Also, I'm unsure of the proceedings if there are two articles... It might be that they get merged, and the researcher attribute gets shared between the two of you... As I say, I'm not sure, so I'd check this with the sub who edits this, or even going and asking Anna.

FC

A seriously fascinating and well-researched article, Azara

Very well done

Wilfrid

Excellent entry! I can't even find any typos or grammatical errors.

Thanks for the thumbs-up, Wilfrid and Gnomon! Fashion Cat, thans for the comments, which I hope I have dealt with: I've added a sentence mentioning the rarer colours of amber: bone amber, green and blue. The green appears to be traces of decaying organic matter, but I didn't want to get into that level of detail. I switched the order for the book and film of Jurassic Park. I've mentioned that later studies don't back up the claims from the early 90s of finding identifiable DNA in amber. I've moved the full stop beside the footnote. Thanks for that hint - I've been doing it the wrong way round all the time! Withe regard to replacing the old entry, Chris said in post 16 of the thread http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/F77916?thread=149685 'This could be seen to set somewhat of a precedent: entries that are basically a couple of sentences, and are by the old h2g2 writing team, and which break the writing guidelines, can be replaced with suitably augmented entries submitted to Peer Review.' The old 'amber jewellery' entry is short, it's by the old writing team, and it certainly wouldn't get through Peer Review now, so I think it's a suitable candidate for replacement. Azara

Well I certainly agree with that! Should have no probs with replacement!!

Glad I could help. The footnote thing is a peeve of mine as a sub, and I wish more people knew about it! I love amber, so it was fascinating reading about it. I didnt really appreciate its origins, so I'm glad you filled me in!

Green is decaying matter??? Fascinating... I went to the amber room link. That was just amazing to see the photo. really caught my breath!

Congratulations Azara! You made me post to peer review!

Excellent piece of writing.

Well researched and well executed.



- X

Terrific piece of work, Azara.

As soon as I started reading it, I thought of the Amber room and later - lo and behold! - it was in.

Definitely guideworthy. Oh for a pick at the moment!

I found the research lacking..............Nothing! excellent covorage of the subject. Good Show. You've got my Vote.
The Kid

Superfluous energetic noddings of agreement.

Very nice! Not only can you critique, you can write!

Hi Azara

Congratulations, this entry has been recommended for inclusion in the Edited Guide and the thread has been moved out of Peer Review.

Congratulations!

Excellent! Well deserved!

Thank you all!

Pass the around......



Azara

ERM - probably too late now, but you might want to know that the earliest amber is Cretaceous (min 65 million years old).
After having oozed down the tree bark, it 'globs' at the bottom of the tree. After a few hundred years it becomes 'copal' which is apparently slick to the touch. To get the colour and consistency of amber just right, it needs to then be left for a further million or so years.

Hi, Frogbit!

I had seen a few references to Cretaceous amber (in the various controversies about Jurassic Park). I decided not to mention it or copal, though, since the more I looked the bigger the entry was getting, and I've decided it's better to err on the side of making the entries too short, rather than too long.

I'm amazed no one has done a popular science bestseller about amber - it seems to be a far more promising subject than some that have hit the bestseller lists.

Thanks, anyway!
Azara