Writing in Biology

I am applying for the Aquarist Intern position for the Summer of 2018. I have heard about the Aquarium's internship program through several people at UMass Amherst and I am very interested in getting involved. I am a junior studying biology at UMass Amherst. I have taken classes at UMass Amherst that include hands-on labs and activities at Hadley Farm on campus. However, I am interested in getting additional exposure and experience working with animals and I think being an Aquarist Intern would give me that opportunity. Additionally, I am a pet owner and I have also done pet sitting and walking for family and friends. I volunteered at MSPCA's Nevins Farm, where I cleaned cages, fed animals, and walked dogs. Although I have never worked with aquatic life before, I have experience with other animals, am hard working, and open to learning new things.  I would love to schedule some time to discuss how my experiences, interests, and skills may be a good fit for the internship program at the New England Aquarium.

Figure 1. Picture of a cactus. The cactus has other plant debris stuck in its thorns, was taken at Balboa park. "Balboa Park. Mostly I visted the cactus garden this day..." by Spifferella at flickr https://www.flickr.com/photos/saynathespiffy/44363336205/in/photostream/ shared under a creative commons (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) license.

There were ten total differences observed between the original (Fig. 1) and the replicated figure (Fig. 2). Some of these differences were in the pictures and others were in the organization of the panels.

The open-street map of the replicate figure did not include Life Sciences Laboratory as a landmark and included the Integrative Learning Center, unlike the original Panel A. The identifying labels (street names, building names, water bodies, etc. ) of the replicate openstreet map appeared larger, and the map overall appeared more saturated in color. The close-up of the spider web did not contain an water bottle for scale and included more of the helpline box than in the original figure. The second picture of the spider web showed less of its environment/settings(excluded much of brick wall) than the original picture. The pictures taken on-site appeared more saturated in color in the replicate figure.

Although the corresponding labels of the different panels (A, B, and C) were bolded in both, the letters were of a much bigger size and of a different font type in the replicate figure (Fig.2). The labels were also lesser distance away from the borders than in the original figure.

Figure 1. The original multi-panel figure of a spider-web, constructed by Marzia Maliha. Panel A consists of an open-street map showing the location of the spider web, Integrated Sciences Building, relative to its surrounding landmarks. The landmarks include buildings like Life Sciences Laboratories and nearby greeneries. Panel B shows a close-up of the spider web with a water bottle for scale. Panel C illustrates an overview of the surroundings of the spider web, a ‘No Smoking’ sign and a yellow Helpline box on the ISB brick wall.

Figure 2. The replicated multi-panel figure of the spider-web, constructed by Sophia Brownstein. Panel A consists of an open-street map showing the location of the spider web , Integrated Sciences Building, relative to its surrounding landmarks. The landmarks include buildings like Integrative Learning Center and nearby water bodies. Panel B shows a close-up of the spider web. Panel C shows the immediate surroundings of the spider web, including a ‘No Smoking’ sign and a yellow Helpline box.

The purpose of the Methods Project was to identify variables which produce the differences between the two resultant figures. To that end, five variables were identified which can be discussed in the ‘methods’ section to avoid common replication errors: camera angle, distance between camera and subject, weather conditions, and scale and bounds of the map.

Weather Conditions

The replicated on-site pictures appear more saturated in color than the original ones. While this may result from different camera type and saturation settings, a more likely explanation is differing weather conditions. The original pictures of the spider web were taken before rain, and brick walls appeared dry in both the ‘close-up’ and the ‘overview’ shots (Fig 1B,1C). In the replicated pictures, brick walls appear redder and more saturated due to being wet from the rain (Fig 2B,2C).

Looking back at my statistics course, I realize that I mainly remember key concepts. For example, all of the basic measures including mean, median, mode. The idea of significance in a set of data is another element of statistics I recall. A confidence interval is essentially a measure of how confident you can be that the obtained result could be repeated. A confidence interval of .9 indicates 90% confidence and .99 indicates 99% confidence. If you have a very large sample and a high confidence interval, then you can more readily rely on the results. Also, a given sample size must have a minimum of thirty participants for results pertaining to it to be considered significant (n=30). All of these concepts can be related to the normal distribution. When conducting an experiment, you want to prove that your hypothesis actually generated a result. By using statistical analysis, you can provide a numeric confirmation that a difference was observed between an original condition and the experimental condition. 

Tokyo is susceptible to flooding even with the smallest amounts of abnormal rain, so any increase could lead to flooding. The average rainfall in Tokyo is shown in Figure 1. Japan has a drier winter than it does summer and has most of its rainfall in September. When the flooding occurred in July, the water levels were already higher on average than they were previously in the year since the summer and fall is wetter than the winter. So the rainfall that occurred in July had a larger impact than it would have had in January when average precipitation is lower. This is because the water tables are more full in July, so excess water does not have as many places to go. However, the flooding was not as detrimental as it might’ve been come September.

   An experiment to determine the effects of gene complementation when a mutation occurs was performed on Saccharomyces cerevisiae, or as it is known better by its common-use name, Yeast. The mutation was induced by UV radiation, and complementation was observed by the crossing of the resulting mutants. It was found that when there is no adenine present in a growth medium, diploid yeast cells crossed from mutant haploid cells do not grow unless there is complementation. The resulting experiment shows this through plating two haploid strands of yeast, MATa, and MATα to form diploid cells. 

Original figure created by me. (A) The campus map cropped to include a small area around the Student Union, which is circled in red. (B) The whole front of the student Union is pictured in this horizontal image that I took, including all four of the pots in front of it. The pot which the spider is on is circled in red.  (C)The specific pot on which the spider is located is pictured, which 2 thick, vertical, red arrows indicating the location of the spider on the pot in between the vertical ridges in the center of the pot. (D) This is the close up, final image of the spider on the pot. The spider is circled in red.

Replicate figure created by classmate. (A) The campus map is cropped to include a large area around the Student Union. The student Union is not circled. (B) The front of the Student Union is pictured. The photo is vertical, so only part of the building horizontally is pictured. (C)The location of the spider on the pot. 2 slanted, horizontal arrows depict the location of the spider, inside a circular ridge at the top of the pot. (D) The final zoomed in image. The circular ridge of the pot is shown, and there is no real spider in the image but a cartoon one is drawn in and circled in red.