QTRS Oct 31, 2024

Graphs and interesting content for the curious

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Bees are choosy

The graph of the week is the correlation plot from Foraging bee species differentially prioritize quantity and quality of floral rewards (10/7/2024)

Among the floral traits, there was no significant correlation between any floral morphological traits (number of flowers, petal length or width) with any pollen nutritional factors (protein, lipid, and P:L) (Spearman-rank test P > 0.1; Fig. 3). However, a significant positive correlation between petal length and width (Spearman: ρ = 0.56, P = 0.01), and a strong negative correlation between lipid concentration and P:L ratios (ρ = −0.83, P = 1.54 × 10⁻⁶) were observed.

I’m taking this as bees like pretty flowers with proper petal length and width.

Florida wins by a lot

No, nothing to do with elections. In 2023, which state had more firms move in than out? You guessed it, Florida. (BLS 10/24/2024)

In 2023, net firm migration, at 503 firms, was highest in Florida, as 1,000 firms moved into the state and 497 left the state. By contrast, net firm migration was lowest in California, which had 601 firms move into the state and 1,134 firms leave the state, resulting in a net loss of 533 firms.

The map here, which is interactive on the BLS page, has a terrible color scale. The dark blue 101 and higher makes it look like the four dark blues are about the same, but it is 503 FL, 158 TN, 149 SC, and 125 TX. Florida is in a class by itself and should get a different color. This is also a problem with dark brown with -533 CA, -278 NY, -218 IL.

More reality on climate action

Ithaca, NY, is about as liberal as it gets. So, how is our climate action plan going (10/11/2024)?

Rebecca Evans, the City of Ithaca’s sustainability director, has tasked herself with “scrapping” the not-yet-adopted Climate Action Plan (CAP) she wrote in 2023. She will be replacing it with a new, more “holistic” approach to reaching net neutrality, she said, by prioritizing adaptation and resilience to today’s climate impacts while also mitigating the causes. 

The Energy Action Plan, the latest approved document that outlines how the city would achieve its emissions reduction goals, has not been updated since 2013. When city officials voted to approve the Ithaca Green New Deal in 2019, they were aware that in order to meet those goals, they would have to also update the city’s action plan. 

Adaptation is not part of the plan. This is a good thing. But here is the full dose of reality.

“Our community doesn’t necessarily want net-zero, and I’ve settled my feelings with that,” Evans wrote in the LinkedIn post. “What we want is to develop socially, economically and environmentally; and net-zero is a product of those things”

If Ithaca, NY, doesn’t necessarily want net zero, then who does? In the end, we, like just about everyone, want more stuff; develop being the key word.

How hot was Sept 2024?

We are now in an ENSO neutral pattern, and we should consider the anomalies relative to ENSO neutral. In that context, 2024 was a little higher than we might expect, but when we look at all months, Sept 2024 is right where we would expect that anomaly to be. Here is what NOAA has to say about Sept 2024.

September 2024 was the second warmest September on record for the globe in NOAA's 175-year record. The September global surface temperature was 1.24°C (2.23°F) above the 20th-century average of 15.0°C (59.0°F). This is 0.19°C (0.34°F) less than the record warm September of 2023, and broke the streak of 15 straight global record-breaking warm months; the first month since May 2023 that was not record warm. September 2024 marked the 50th consecutive September with global temperatures, at least nominally, above the 20th-century average and the 547th-consecutive month with temperatures at least nominally above the 20th-century average. The past eleven Septembers (2014–2024) have been the warmest Septembers on record.

Halloween Picture

In honor of Halloween, here is a black cat from the Library of Congress post Purr-fectly Charming Black Cats (10/31/2024).

This photograph by Arthur Rothstein highlights the tonal contrast between the cat’s dark fur and the bright snow, with shadows providing additional texture.

Stats you can use

The short explanation is that less sedentary behavior (SB) can help reduce back pain from Effects of reducing sedentary behaviour on back pain, paraspinal muscle insulin sensitivity and muscle fat fraction and their associations: a secondary analysis of a 6-month randomised controlled trial (9/9/2024)

In the present study, we show that an intervention aimed at reducing SB by 1 hour/day for 6 months may prevent the worsening of back pain intensity which was observed in the control group. However, the change in back pain intensity was not associated with changes in paraspinal muscle (ie, erector spinae or transversospinales) FF, GU or the changes in PA, SB, pain-related disability or ODI score. Additionally, no intervention effects on paraspinal muscle FF or GU were observed, although increases in daily steps were associated with improved paraspinal muscle GU.

The associated graph is nice in that it shows the magnitude of change for the experimental and control groups and in which direction. Not everyone that reduced SB improved, and not everyone in the control group got worse, and this graph shows that nicely.

Does second lowest count?

The Antarctic looks like it has hit it’s maximum extent for this winter, and it is the second lowest on record. NOAA talks about it in their article 2024 Antarctic sea ice winter maximum second lowest on record (10/8/2024). The graph here is from the National Snow and Ice Data Center Charctic Interactive Sea Ice Graph. This is a neat tool that allows users to select years, download data, and download graphs like this one.

The spinning CD

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Comments

Please point out if you think something was expressed wrongly or misinterpreted. I'd rather know the truth and understand the world than be correct. I welcome comments and disagreement. We should all be forced to express our opinions and change our minds, but we should also know how to respectfully disagree and move on. Send me article ideas, feedback, or other thoughts at briefedbydata@substack.com.

Bio

I am a tenured mathematics professor at Ithaca College (PhD Math: Stochastic Processes, MS Applied Statistics, MS Math, BS Math, BS Exercise Science), and I consider myself an accidental academic (opinions are my own). I'm a gardener, drummer, rower, runner, inline skater, 46er, and R user. I’ve written the textbooks R for College Mathematics and Statistics and Applied Calculus with R. I welcome any collaborations.