Rhetorical Summary

A bacterial virus, named WO, was discovered to contain spider-like DNA. WO is a bacteriophage (phage), a virus that infects and replicates within bacteria. It’s usual target is a bacterial parasite named Wolbachia. Wolbachia is found in 40% of arthropods and has recently been used to fight the Zika-carrying mosquitoes. Now, scientists realize they can use the virus to insert whatever gene they wanted into Wolbachia and then that would modify the mosquito from within. Animal genes were also found inside of WO which then led to the research of how phages could be used as a therapeutic tool to treat infections in humans. This is because WO provides evidence that a phage can get in and out of an animal cell or bacterial cell to attack an illness. This advantage of this would be that they are no side effects because they would only target the disease bacterium.

In your annotation of the article, what are a few of the predominant pieces of rhetoric that the author chooses to use to achieve his/her purpose? Also, add your
It emphasizes how it could lead to new medical technique and could be used as a therapeutic tool to treat bacterial infections. The tone of the article is informative and hopeful. The use of facts and definitions creates the informative tone of the paragraph. Diction, such as the words “advantage” and “may hold clues” expresses the hopeful tone. Both of these tones emphasizes how the new information found could benefit humans and lead to new medical techniques such as the therapeutic tool to treat bacterial infections. My opinion is that if we were able to harness WO and use it for our benefits it would have both a positive and negative aspect. The positive part is that we would be able to treat infections in our bodies without damaging our “ healthy” bacteria. The negative aspect is that WO could be used for biological warfare in the