Carl Zimmer has some pretty awesome advice for writing about science. I’m going to try and follow it. You all should feel free to point out my mistakes. I think avoiding the words on this list is a good place for me to start. I’ve particularly abused interesting, elucidate, faciliate, impact, interaction, interdisciplinary, literally, mechanism, multiple, novel, and parameter.
Figures Lie and Liars Figure – Under Water
If you’re new here, you might want to read the previous Figures Lie and Liars Figure posts, a public conversation on climate change between my skeptical aunt and myself.
My aunt’s last question about this EPA slideshow on climate change indicators is about extreme rainfall events. The slideshow tells us that
In recent years, a higher percentage of precipitation in the United States has come in the form of intense single-day events. Eight of the top 10 years for extreme one-day precipitation events have occurred since 1990. The occurrence of abnormally high annual precipitation totals has also increased.
But my aunt remembers big floods from the 1970s and suggests that those events may cast doubt on intense single-day precipitation events as an indication of climate change.
Single-day events causing floods is talked about as a recent event, but there were similar things in PA in the 70s (huge rains that washed coffins out of the ground)–the trees are still marked down at Knoebels. It snowed 48″ on Thanksgiving when I was 15–that was a lot of precipitation (1970).
As Brazil, Australia, the Pacific Northwest, South Africa, Denmark, and Sri Lanka are currently struggling with floods and Pakistan is just beginning a long road to recovery after a FIFTH of the country went under last year, I think this is the perfect time to address this issue. My aunt refers to the flooding from Hurricane Agnes in 1972 in her question. I couldn’t find any records that back up my aunt’s memory of a big Thanksgiving snowstorm in 1970, but perhaps it was a fairly localized event. Or maybe her memory was a little fuzzy and she’s thinking of the smaller (but still record-setting) storm in 1971.
The particular events my aunt refers to don’t actually matter. Her real question is do extreme precipitation events in the past mean that recent and future events have nothing to do with climate change?
Well, yes and no. No individual extreme precipitation event is a sign that climate change is happening, but a change in the overall frequency is. This has really important implications for how we build our infrastructure. If a 100 year flood becomes a 10 year flood, we probably need better bridges.
So, we accept that extreme precipitation events happened in the past. But are they becoming more common?
The Learn More link [pdf] from the slideshow shows an increasing trend in heavy rainfall events in the US, especially since the 1980s.
Like most of the other indicators I’ve discussed in this series, an increase in heavy rainfall events doesn’t prove or disprove climate change by itself. But when combined with all the other indicators of climate change we have, it’s hard to argue that climate change isn’t happening.
If you want to read more about how climate change is expected to influence precipitation, I recommend CO2Now’s explanation.
This was my aunt’s last question from the EPA slideshow and IGBP information I sent her. I’ll add one more post to this series summarizing some of the common themes, my thoughts on climate skeptics like my aunt, and my aunt’s response to the series.
More about this
- The term ‘100-year event’ really lost its meaning this year (jcwinnie.biz)
- New guidelines running years behind schedule (theage.com.au)
- All the wrong stars aligned for perfect storms (theage.com.au)
Ayurvedic update – Failure #2
A very kind reader sent me The Complete Book of Ayurvedic Home Remedies, and I’m trying the migraine remedies it recommends. The first remedy (yawning in a funny way) was a failure at treating migraines, but feels good.
- 2d Structure of Tyramine. Image via Wikipedia
The second thing I tried was to eat a breakfast of bananas, ghee, cardamom, and date sugar every morning for a couple weeks. I normally avoid bananas because they’re gross and they have a lot of tyramine, something I know I’m sensitive to.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, this remedy made my migraines much, much worse.
I was thinking about trying some overall dietary recommendations from the book based on ‘constitutional types,’ or doshas. This idea is pretty similar to ‘humors’ in the west, which have been thoroughly discredited. The shaky scientific basis aside, my constitutional type is strongly Vata. The diet recommended for Vata contradicts the Pitta pacifying diet I’m supposed to follow for migraines and both diets recommend many of the foods that I know are triggers for me. Perhaps I could avoid all the foods on the no list for both types? That’s pretty restrictive.
I think I’ll work on getting my hands on the herbs it recommends instead.
Handling a Chronic Illness in Grad School
I’ve sent out applications to three of the four schools I’m applying to for graduate school and have begun a dialogue with potential major professors. I feel pretty optimistic about getting into grad school. I’m a smart cookie and I did some pretty cool research as an undergraduate.
One of the things I haven’t brought up in my correspondence with potential advisors is that I have migraines. A lot of migraines. I used to have them almost constantly, but I was able to cut them down to about 20-30 hours a week after identifying some controllable triggers.
As an undergraduate with classes that weren’t especially challenging and teachers that didn’t mind letting me make up tests, migraines didn’t really hurt anything other than my head. I did really well and accomplished a lot in and out of my classes: I obtained more than $40,000 to support my research and club projects, I’ve presented at lots of national and regional meetings, and I’ve taught myself the ins and outs of data management and two programming languages. The flexibility and support of the people and organizations I worked with made it so that my migraines weren’t that much of an issue.
But I’m really worried about grad school. What will I do when I need to teach classes? Or have committee meetings? Or just have to deal with a heavier workload?
There are places I can live where my migraines will be less severe, but I think one migraine a week is the best I can hope for. And I won’t know for sure until I’ve lived in a place for a few months.
I’ve asked you all about this before, and I’ve really appreciated Lady Quantum‘s insights. But I haven’t got a lot of feedback from real live professors with graduate students. I’d hoped Dr. Isis could answer some of my questions, or at least get me some answers from more professors. However, about the time I emailed her, the universe tried to kill her. So I’m trying again here.
My field isn’t quite as intense as biomed, but people still have to work hard and get a lot done in a short amount of time. At what point in the application process should I bring up my health? Would you consider taking on a student with a chronic illness that would certainly impact their productivity? Under what conditions? If you’re an advisor with a sick grad student, what do you wish the student did differently? If you know a student with a chronic illness (or are one) – what are some good coping strategies?
Open Lab 2010
The Open Laboratory is a book of the best science blogging published each year. Posts are nominated and judged by science bloggers everywhere. One of my posts was nominated this year. Even though it didn’t make the final cut, I was still flattered. I’ve never actually bought the book, but I love when the final selections are published – it’s always a great list, even if it does have a pretty big human/biomedical bias. Here are my favorites from this year’s chosen posts:
- It’s more than genes, it’s networks and systems by PZ Myers
- When do you move from living to dying? by Pal MD
- The decade the clones came: Beware the mighty Marmokrebs! by Zen Faulkes
- Testing the flotation dynamics and swimming abilities of giraffes by way of computational analysis by Darren Naish
- But did you correct your results using a dead salmon? by Iddo Friedberg
- J.B.S. Haldane and the case of the revivified head by Jeremy Yoder
The frustrations of ruling a kingdom
Back down on the plains, if you kicked people they kicked back. Up here, when you kicked people they moved away and just waited patiently for your leg to fall off. How could a king go down in history ruling a people like that? You couldn’t oppress them any more than you could oppress a mattress.
From Wyrd Sisters, by Terry Pratchett
Grad apps: so close!
I finished my second grad school application last night. Now I just have to get one more letter of recommendation before I drop it in the mail. My third grad school application should be finished by lunchtime today. Then I don’t have another application due until March.
Making the application process more complex than I expected is the sudden growth of my social life – four people from out of town are visiting me this week! I am thrilled to see them all, but I do wish things had been spaced out a bit better.