"How a Children's Toy Could Help Fight Malaria"

by Jason Daley

“There are more than a billion people around the world who have no infrastructure, no roads, and no electricity,” says Manu Prakash, a physical biologist at Stanford and inventor of the new gadget. When he visited Uganda in 2013 he found that clinics either did not have centrifuges or didn’t have the juice to power them. “One clinic used its broken centrifuge as a doorstop,” Prakash tells Devin Powell at Nature.

“How a Children’s Toy Could Help Fight Malaria” by Jason Daley, from SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE, May 4, 2017. Copyright © 2017 by Smithsonian Institution. Reprinted with permission from Smithsonian Enterprises. All rights reserved. Reproduction in any medium is strictly prohibited without permission from Smithsonian Institution.

Question
Use the passage to answer the question.

For what purpose does the author include the sentence about using the centrifuge as a doorstop?

(1 point)
Responses

to show a negative opinion of centrifuges
to show a negative opinion of centrifuges

to criticize the inventor’s waste of time
to criticize the inventor’s waste of time

to indicate a positive opinion of recycling
to indicate a positive opinion of recycling

to highlight a problem with a current system

1 answer

The purpose of the author including the sentence about using the centrifuge as a doorstop is to highlight a problem with a current system. This illustrates the lack of proper medical equipment and functioning facilities in clinics, emphasizing the challenges faced in addressing health issues like malaria.