Apres moi le deluge

February. Get ink, shed tears.
Write of it, sob your heart out, sing,
While torrential slush that roars
Burns in the blackness of the spring
 

 from 'Black Spring' by Boris Pasternak (translated by Alex Miller)

In February I trudged along the banks of the Ouse.  I had set out in the aftermath of the floods and though the water level had fallen in previous weeks, there were still signs in town and country of its devastation. Empty houses and ruined businesses haunted York city, but I wanted to see what was happening downriver.

The mud clung to my boots as I followed the slippery path downstream. I placed my feet on tufts of grass, hoping that their roots would give the ground extra purchase and I wouldn't be introducing my backside to the sodden earth. Plant roots don't just help maintain the integrity of the soil, they can also increase the amount of water it can hold and help the water evaporate through transpiration. More trees in the upland would have helped to protect the landscape surrounding me from ruin.

My trail snaked about waterlogged bushes and trees that seemed to have taken strange forms. The great torrent had deposited driftwood and mud high in their boughs. Silt and sticks caked together on the bare wooden scaffolds, leaving each tree's damaged arms carrying a tangle of new, deadwood branches.

Ahead of me, the land opened up and as I left the path, I stared at a bizarre scene on the boggy ground. As the water receded, the ice covering it had cracked and fallen on the tufts of grass below, scattering large sheets of ice. It was almost as if the plants had sprung up to break a giant sheet of plate glass.

Eventually the alien world ahead of me became too difficult to navigate and I had to turn back, undoing the steps I'd already taken. Today, as the government broadcasts televised flood-warnings and advice, I look back on that February and wonder if they'll be willing to backtrack too. Dredging, uphill farming and river straightening have made flooding more likely and more dangerous. We need to think seriously about land-use if we're going to stop this happening again.

UN International Day of Women and Girls in Science.

This is Barbara McClintock, a botanist. In her work on maize she made fundamental contributions to our understanding of genetics, which have applications far wider than just plant science.

Barabara McClintock. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution Archive

 She was the first person to describe a phenomenon called 'chromosome crossover'. This is a mechanism in which bits of parent chromosomes are swapped during sexual reproduction, allowing inheritance of new combinations of alleles (versions of genes). This discovery was key to understanding how different traits are inherited between generations and is thought to be crucial to the success of sexually reproductive organisms.

She was the first person to describe transposons or 'jumping genes'. These are elements of DNA that can move within the genome, causing mutations. This work also showed that genes could actually be switched on or off, a fundamental concept to understanding how organisms actually work.

She won the 1983 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for her work on transposons, the only time it's been awarded to a lone woman. Both of these discoveries occur in a wide range of organisms, from mosses to humans, and they have greatly increased our knowledge of the natural world.

Her mother tried to prevent her going to University fearing it would make her 'unmarriageable'. Fortunately her father disagreed, but antiquated ideas about women's role in society almost prevented one histories greatest geneticists in reaching her potential. Things have improved but I still see sexism in science and relatively few women make it to top academic posts. We as a society need to change the way that science works, to allow equal access and opportunity within the field.