Not Another Science Podcast

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/.

What do you think of when you hear ‘botanic gardens’?  In the very first episode of Plants & Our Health, a new miniseries exploring how plants support human health and wellbeing, we discuss with Simon Milne MBE how botanic gardens are much more than collections of plants. Simon is Regius Keeper at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE), an institution that, through its diversity of engagements ranging from science to community engagement, is critical to the wellbeing of the people of Scotland and the world.

‘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. The first two episodes will explore the theme of ‘Plants & Our Mental Health’.

You can dig deeper into how RBGE supports our health and wellbeing on their website (https://www.rbge.org.uk/visit/health-and-wellbeing/). You can also keep up with Simon’s activities leading the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh on Twitter @SimonMilne_RBGE.

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/.

Is a coral a really smart rock or a very stupid plant? In the first episode of season 2, we dive into the biology of corals with Nadia Jogee, a PhD student at the University of Edinburgh’s School of Geosciences. More specifically, Nadia studies coralliths, a type of mobile coral, and the role they might play in reef recovery and expansion — a particularly important topic in the current changing climate.

You can find out more about Nadia on her website (https://nadiajogee.wordpress.com/about/), and follow her on Twitter @nadiajogee, and Instagram @nadia_jogee

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:

For the final episode of the season, we have another joint interview! Prof. Miguel Anjos and Dr. Lars Schewe both work in the field of mathematical optimisation, looking at different aspects of energy networks. They dive into how optimisation can be used to solve problems at any scale, from sorting out your local bus route to managing the decarbonisation of a country's energy system. And ultimately (spoiler alert!) we conclude that maths is everywhere. 

Find out more about the Edinburgh Research Group in Optimization, a collaboration within the University of Edinburgh School of Mathematics. You can also visit Miguel's website to find out more about his work. The paper that Tom mentioned is Strassburg et al. (2020) Global priority areas for ecosystem restoration, Nature 586, 724-729.  

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 logo was designed by Apple Chew (@_applechew). The podcast cover art was designed by Heather Jones (@heatherfrancs). We'll be back next semester with a whole new series, so stay tuned. 

In the meantime, 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. We’re also on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter. All podcast episodes and transcripts can be found at www.eusci.org.uk/podcasts/.

Music by Kevin Macleod:

This week’s guest is Sorrel Lyall, a third-year ecology student at the University of Edinburgh, a stupendously talented birder and artist, and president of the Edinburgh University Ornithological Society (also known as BirdSoc). We talk birdwatching, running a society during a pandemic, and about how we can promote diversity in birding.

Sorrel can be found on Twitter (@SorrelLyall), and you can find her art, photography, and blog on her website. For further information, check out her article about diversity in birding for Rare Bird Alert, and her talk for the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust. You can find BirdSoc on Twitter and Instagram (@EdUniBirdSoc), and Facebook.

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

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. We’re also on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter. All podcast episodes and transcripts can be found at www.eusci.org.uk/podcasts/.

Music by Kevin Macleod:

Dr Ed Hutchison almost dropped his cup of tea when he found out that the research he had been working on since his postdoc, on which he had founded his lab, had been scooped. What followed is a heartwarming story of collaboration, teamwork, generosity, and kindness in science. Today we bring you our conversation with Dr Hutchinson, and with one of his collaborators from the University of Edinburgh, Dr Sara Clohisey.

You can follow the Hutchinson lab and Dr Sara Clohisey on Twitter, and read the Twitter thread that Dr Hutchinson wrote about this research. Make sure to check out the Hutchinson lab manual, which includes the helpful tip of where to find the lab’s secret stash of shortbread (“because science is hard, and living in Scotland has its benefits”).

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

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. We’re also on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter. All podcast episodes and transcripts can be found at www.eusci.org.uk/podcasts/.

Music by Kevin Macleod: Funkorama, and Funk Game Loop, used under a Creative Commons License.

* The group of viruses that includes influenza uses RNA rather than DNA to store their genetic information. We said DNA in the show, sorry!

“There’s a terrible myth that scientists are supposed to be all-knowing. And no, we’re blunderers around in the dark. The whole of science is about that: if we knew what we were doing it wouldn’t be research.”

Jamie Davies has had a fascinating career in academia, and along the way he’s learned some important lessons. In this episode, he passes on his wisdom and treats us to some great stories from a life in science.

You can find out more about Professor Davies and his work on his lab’s website, his University of Edinburgh staff page, and his blog.

Not Another Science Podcast is edited by Helena Cornu, hosted by Tom Edwick and brought to you by Edinburgh University Science Magazine (EUSci). Our podcast logo  was designed by Apple Chew. The podcast cover art was designed by Heather Jones.

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. We’re also on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter. All podcast episodes and transcripts can be found at www.eusci.org.uk/podcasts/.

Music by Kevin Macleod:

At school, Jamie Davies was fascinated by how impossibly complex things can arise from very simple beginnings. He decided that he would become a radio astronomer and investigate the formation of galaxies from the stars and planets of our universe. But then he went to university. During his degree in Natural Sciences at Cambridge, he came across the field of developmental biology and instantly knew he had found his calling. What could be a better challenge than trying to find out how human bodies are built from a sperm and an egg? Now, in his lab at the University of Edinburgh, Jamie Davies works on the kidney, trying to work out how it forms and how we might grow kidneys from scratch, as well as diving into the mysterious realm of synthetic biology.

Not Another Science Podcast is edited by Helena Cornu, hosted by Tom Edwick and brought to you by Edinburgh University Science Magazine (EUSci). Our podcast logo  was designed by Apple Chew. The podcast cover art was designed by Heather Jones.

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. We’re also on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter. All podcast episodes and transcripts can be found at www.eusci.org.uk/podcasts/.

Music by Kevin Macleod:

Wikipedia is an online, open-source encyclopaedia that attracts 1.5 billion unique visitors every month, and has 54 million articles written in more than 300 different languages. Not just a place to learn interesting facts (or cheat in a pub quiz), Wikipedia is an incredibly important resource used by journalists, teachers, media teams, companies, scientists, and those without access to physical textbooks. But Wikipedia is not perfect, and many of our societal biases are reflected in the makeup of articles added to the site - on English Wikipedia, only 1 in 5 biographies are of women. Ultimately, this comes down to who edits and creates articles, and the previous statistic may not come as a surprise given that between 80 and 90 percent of Wikipedia editors are men.

So how do we resolve this problem? We create. In this episode, Helena speaks to Jess Wade, physicist and prominent member of the growing movement that aims to tackle the gender and racial biases on Wikipedia by creating articles that increase the visibility of women, people of colour, and other underrepresented groups. Finally, don’t miss out on your very own chance to get involved with this movement by joining us at our EUSci Wikipedia edit-a-thon, hosted by our very own Helena Cornu! Follow the link for more information: https://fb.me/e/2R9bC83OJ.

Not Another Science Podcast is edited by Helena Cornu, hosted by Tom Edwick and brought to you by Edinburgh University Science Magazine (EUSci). Our podcast logo  was designed by Apple Chew. The podcast cover art was designed by Heather Jones.

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. We’re also on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter. All podcast episodes and transcripts can be found at www.eusci.org.uk/podcasts/.

Music by Kevin Macleod:

Welcome to the first episode of our new season! Before we kick off the season properly, we thought we’d introduce ourselves. 

We’d also love to meet you all, so be sure to attend the events we’re organising for Welcome Week — more details in the episode, and on our social media.

Not Another Science Podcast is edited by Helena Cornu, hosted by Tom Edwick and brought to you by Edinburgh University Science Magazine (EUSci). Our podcast logo  was designed by Apple Chew. The podcast cover art was designed by Heather Jones, with artwork by Karolina Zieba.

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. We’re also on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter. All podcast episodes and transcripts can be found at www.eusci.org.uk/podcasts/.

Music by Kevin Macleod: