What do evolutionary ecology research, the health of plants and public engagement have in common?... Dr Katy Hayden! As a researcher and Plant Health Officer at Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, Katy helps safeguard the Garden’s plant collections against pests and diseases. This week, Katy takes us on an audio tour of her working life in the gardens as we explore a new and perhaps less understood theme: Plants and Their Own Health. Research in plant health is not only of great academic interest, but is also important to improving biosecurity practices now. And as Katy explains, plant health is much more than the absence of disease.

‘Plants & Our Health’ is a 10-part miniseries made in collaboration with the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, and kindly supported with funding from the British Ecological Society.

Not Another Science Podcast is co-created by Helena Cornu and Tom Edwick, brought to you by Edinburgh University Science Magazine (EUSci). Our podcast manager is Alix Bailie. The logo was designed by Apple Chew, and the cover art was designed by Heather Jones.

You can visit our website at www.eusci.org.uk to check out the latest issue of the magazine, a ton of other cool science content by our student journalists, and to see how to get involved. You can also follow EUSci on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter. All podcast episodes and transcripts can be found at www.eusci.org.uk/podcasts/.

Music is Wallpaper by Kevin MacLeod (Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4604-wallpaper; License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license)

Mine Çetinkaya-Rundel started her maths career as an actuary, where she spent her days wrangling data and studying after work for her exams. She loved working with data, but doing the exams… not so much. So she embarked on a PhD in statistics, where she discovered a love for teaching and all things pedagogical. Mine’s career since has combined these two passions, and now she works to promote accessibility in data science and statistics, and boost the representation of women and other minority groups. Tune in to find out more, and stick around ‘til the end to meet Mine’s cat Dorian Gray (which is, by all accounts, a truly excellent name for a cat).

You can find Mine on Twitter @minebocek. Check out Data Science in a Box at datasciencebox.org, and the statistics with R course at coursera.org/specializations/statistics. 

Sign up for DataFest, an undergraduate competition for students at the University of Edinburgh and Heriot Watt at http://bit.ly/df-edi. Registrations close March 19th!

Not Another Science Podcast is co-created by Helena Cornu (@helenacornu) and Tom Edwick (@edwicktom), brought to you by Edinburgh University Science Magazine (EUSci). Our podcast manager is Alix Bailie. The logo was designed by Apple Chew (@_applechew), and the cover art was designed by Heather Jones (@heatherfrancs).

You can visit our website at www.eusci.org.uk to check out the latest issue of the magazine, a ton of other cool science content by our student journalists, and to see how to get involved. You can also follow EUSci on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter. All podcast episodes and transcripts can be found at www.eusci.org.uk/podcasts/.

Music by Kevin Macleod: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3788-funkorama; https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3787-funk-game-loop; http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

How many mathematicians does it take to optimise your internet shopping deliveries? In conversation with the Winners of the 12th AIMMS-MOPTA Optimization Modeling Competition, we hear how team NP Die Hard discovered their previously untapped skills to solve this problem in 3 months… and get a paper published from their work! From choosing your warehouses, to using the most appropriate optimisation to arrange deliveries, the team solved a very relevant problem for all of us in lockdown. After presenting their unique solution, they were contacted by a journal editor in the audience who wanted to publish their innovative work. What better way to celebrate pi day?

Ivona Gjeroska is on LinkedIn and Facebook, Paula Fermin Cueto is on LinkedIn, and Albert Solà Vilalta is also on LinkedIn.

And you can see their presentation here: https://community.aimms.com/what-s-new-at-aimms-26/team-np-die-hard-from-university-of-edinburgh-wins-the-12th-aimms-mopta-optimization-modeling-competition-712

Not Another Science Podcast is co-created by Helena Cornu (@helenacornu) and Tom Edwick (@edwicktom), brought to you by Edinburgh University Science Magazine (EUSci). Our podcast manager is Alix Bailie. The logo was designed by Apple Chew (@_applechew), and the cover art was designed by Heather Jones (@heatherfrancs).

You can visit our website at www.eusci.org.uk to check out the latest issue of the magazine, a ton of other cool science content by our student journalists, and to see how to get involved. You can also follow EUSci on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter. All podcast episodes and transcripts can be found at www.eusci.org.uk/podcasts/.

Music by Kevin Macleod: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3337-aces-high/; http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Could one of the most important anti-cancer compounds really have come from the bark of infamously poisonous yew trees? And as these yews were already threatened, how did we harvest enough bark to produce the drugs we needed without killing them all off? In this second Plants as Our Medicines episode, we dive into the recent history of yews and Taxol, the anti-cancer drug they provide. We’re joined by Dr Ramchandra Poudel, Senior Scientist at Nepal Academy of Science and Technology, who has a background in community-based conservation of medicinal plants. Ram discloses how yews have long had a variety of uses in Nepal, far predating the scientific discovery of Taxol. Even now, Himalayan yews remain at the centre of economic conflict in Nepal, as farmers who have waited years for their slow-growing yews to mature now find stiff competition from competitors producing Taxol in much faster ways.

‘Plants & Our Health’ is a 10-part miniseries made in collaboration with the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, and kindly supported with funding from the British Ecological Society.

Not Another Science Podcast is co-created by Helena Cornu and Tom Edwick, brought to you by Edinburgh University Science Magazine (EUSci). Our podcast manager is Alix Bailie. The logo was designed by Apple Chew, and the cover art was designed by Heather Jones.

You can visit our website at www.eusci.org.uk to check out the latest issue of the magazine, a ton of other cool science content by our student journalists, and to see how to get involved. You can also follow EUSci on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter. All podcast episodes and transcripts can be found at www.eusci.org.uk/podcasts/.

Music is Wallpaper by Kevin MacLeod (Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4604-wallpaper; License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license)

Less than 1% of tropical plants have been screened for their potential medicinal uses. Yet many common drugs today are derived from plants. On this episode of Plants & Our Health, we talk with Dr Markus Ruhsam on the impressive potential of plants to the pharmaceutical industry and to help us look after our own health, now and in the future. We also discuss a research project Markus led using DNA barcoding to identify whether herbal supplements contained the plants they say they do, which turned out some intriguing results.

To learn more about Markus’ investigations into the contents of herbal supplements, or to find out how you could start exploring the medicinal uses of your local plant life, you can reach Markus by email at [email protected]

‘Plants & Our Health’ is a 10-part miniseries made in collaboration with the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, and kindly supported with funding from the British Ecological Society.

Not Another Science Podcast is co-created by Helena Cornu and Tom Edwick, brought to you by Edinburgh University Science Magazine (EUSci). Our podcast manager is Alix Bailie. The logo was designed by Apple Chew, and the cover art was designed by Heather Jones.

You can visit our website at www.eusci.org.uk to check out the latest issue of the magazine, a ton of other cool science content by our student journalists, and to see how to get involved. You can also follow EUSci on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter. All podcast episodes and transcripts can be found at www.eusci.org.uk/podcasts/.

Music is Wallpaper by Kevin MacLeod (Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4604-wallpaper; License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license)

Did you know some plants grow crystals to scatter light? And some bacteria can sense the Earth's magnetic fields? This week, we chat to Dr. Fabio Nudelman from the University of Edinburgh's School of Chemistry, who tells us about how living organisms incorporate minerals into their biological structures, the wonderful uses they have for such materials, and how studying them can help us create new materials.  

Not Another Science Podcast is co-created by Helena Cornu (@helenacornu) and Tom Edwick (@edwicktom), brought to you by Edinburgh University Science Magazine (EUSci). Our podcast manager is Alix Bailie. The logo was designed by Apple Chew (@_applechew), and the cover art was designed by Heather Jones (@heatherfrancs).

You can visit our website at www.eusci.org.uk to check out the latest issue of the magazine, a ton of other cool science content by our student journalists, and to see how to get involved. You can also follow EUSci on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter. All podcast episodes and transcripts can be found at www.eusci.org.uk/podcasts/.

Music by Kevin Macleod: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3788-funkorama; https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3787-funk-game-loop http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Close relatives of wheat, tomato and all other major crops still grow in the wild. However, human impacts are increasingly placing these species under threat. This week on Plants & Our Health we talk with Dr Nigel Maxted, Professor of Plant Genetic Conservation at the University of Birmingham, about turning research into policy and action, the importance of crop wild relatives and his global-scale efforts to protect them. Continuing on our theme ‘Plants on our Plates’, Nigel discusses how conserving the wild cousins of our crops is essential to global food security and future-proofing agriculture against climate change.

To dig deeper into Nigel’s fascinating work, check out his University of Birmingham website profile (https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/staff/profiles/biosciences/maxted-nigel.aspx). You can also email him at [email protected].

Not Another Science Podcast is co-created by Helena Cornu and Tom Edwick, brought to you by Edinburgh University Science Magazine (EUSci). Our podcast manager is Alix Bailie. The logo was designed by Apple Chew, and the cover art was designed by Heather Jones.

You can visit our website at www.eusci.org.uk to check out the latest issue of the magazine, a ton of other cool science content by our student journalists, and to see how to get involved. You can also follow EUSci on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter. All podcast episodes and transcripts can be found at www.eusci.org.uk/podcasts/.

Where would we be without the plants that feed us? Why should we grow our own, and grow them together? This week on Plants & Our Health, we dive into the delicious new theme of ‘Plants on our Plates’ with Elinor Leslie, Community Gardener at Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. Elinor works on the Edible Gardening Project, assisting diverse groups with horticultural interests to engage in growing their own fruit and vegetables. As Elinor stresses however, the produce is not the only goal or joy of community growing. Wonderful, unexpected things happen when people toil at the soil over a long growing season.

To learn more about the Edible Gardening Project or how you could start growing with your community, check out @EdibleGarden1 on Twitter. You can also email Elinor at [email protected].

Music is Wallpaper by Kevin MacLeod (Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4604-wallpaper; License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license)

Not Another Science Podcast is co-created by Helena Cornu and Tom Edwick, brought to you by Edinburgh University Science Magazine (EUSci). Our podcast manager is Alix Bailie. The logo was designed by Apple Chew, and the cover art was designed by Heather Jones.

You can visit our website at www.eusci.org.uk to check out the latest issue of the magazine, a ton of other cool science content by our student journalists, and to see how to get involved. You can also follow EUSci on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter. All podcast episodes and transcripts can be found at www.eusci.org.uk/podcasts/.

Who do you go to when you have problems with crabs? Meadows Share obviously! This was only one of the fascinating questions that arose when we spoke to the team from Robocean in our second episode of season 2. The team recently won the Edinburgh Innovations Students Business Ideas Competition with their plan to restore the UK’s seagrass — a vital natural mechanism for carbon capture. Hear about the unique challenges of building subsea robots, with the added difficulty of never meeting your team in person.

Follow their progress as they attempt to code and assemble their creation from several locations around the city on Instagram @robocean.io, on Twitter @robocean_eco, or email them at [email protected]

Not Another Science Podcast is co-created by Helena Cornu (@helenacornu) and Tom Edwick (@edwicktom), brought to you by Edinburgh University Science Magazine (EUSci). Our podcast manager is Alix Bailie. The logo was designed by Apple Chew (@_applechew), and the cover art was designed by Heather Jones (@heatherfrancs).

You can visit our website at www.eusci.org.uk to check out the latest issue of the magazine, a ton of other cool science content by our student journalists, and to see how to get involved. You can also follow EUSci on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter. All podcast episodes and transcripts can be found at www.eusci.org.uk/podcasts/.

Music by Kevin Macleod:

How could a doctor prescribe you nature? Does it work? And who is it for? On this second episode of our new miniseries Plants & Our Health, we continue to explore the theme ‘Plants & Our Mental Health’ with Nature Prescriptions Project Development Executive Elaine Bradley, and Edinburgh GP Dr Louise Bailey. Our two guests share their experiences working on the Nature Prescriptions project in Scotland, through which doctors are prescribing time in nature for their patients, assisted by resources made by RSPB. After a successful rollout across Shetland, the project has its sights now set on getting the people of Edinburgh out into nature.

Visit the RSPB website (https://www.rspb.org.uk/about-the-rspb/at-home-and-abroad/scotland/) for a range of ideas to help get you outdoors during the pandemic. You can also find Elaine on Twitter @LaineyBradley.

‘Plants & Our Health’ is a brand new 10-part miniseries made in collaboration with the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, and kindly supported with funding from the British Ecological Society.

Music is Wallpaper by Kevin MacLeod (Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4604-wallpaper; License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license)

Not Another Science Podcast is co-created by Helena Cornu and Tom Edwick, brought to you by Edinburgh University Science Magazine (EUSci). Our podcast manager is Alix Bailie. The logo was designed by Apple Chew, and the cover art was designed by Heather Jones.

You can visit our website at www.eusci.org.uk to check out the latest issue of the magazine, a ton of other cool science content by our student journalists, and to see how to get involved. You can also follow EUSci on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter. All podcast episodes and transcripts can be found at www.eusci.org.uk/podcasts/.