Blog Awards 2013

Communicate Science has been nominated for Best Science/Education Blog in the 2013 Blog Awards Ireland.

You can see the full longlist here. Winners will be announced at a ceremony in October.

Is "gardening" killing plant science?

Gardening Gnome by pareerica (Creative Commons)

James Wong - the ethnobotanist, author and BBC science presenter- came in for some criticism in recent days for being over-excited about gardening.

The writer Helen Gazeley wrote in her blog:

"Gardening isn't exciting. Gardening is the epitome of delayed gratification. We wait; we nurture. People who need excitement in the quantities that gardening marketing departments would like to serve up go sky-diving, bungie-jumping, or throw all their savings into a once-in-lifetime venture. Those of us who garden find it has exciting moments, but we do not do it for excitement."

Fair comment, I suppose, but Wong was not about to take the criticism lying down and tweeted:

Shame that finding gardening 'fun' & 'exciting' is considered cynical, infantilised & trite. Unsurprising hort is in crisis when..... (1/2)
— James Wong (@Botanygeek) July 4, 2013

the dominant model is so straight jacketed that it has a monopoly on not only how I grow, but even how I should FEEL when doing it. (2/2)
— James Wong (@Botanygeek) July 4, 2013

So, are plants exciting? Is gardening exciting? Should we strive to make the study and use of plants exciting for a younger audience?

I'm a plant scientist. I'm not really a gardener. The sum total of my personal gardening efforts (i.e. growing plants at home, for non-research purposes) are a few tomatoes, some sunflowers and a small pot of herbs outside the kitchen window. So, credentials out of the way, I'm proposing a question: Is "gardening" killing plant science?

In Ireland, we still have a very strong network of plant science researchers and teachers along with a good selection of undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in plant science/botany/plant biology, etc., along with horticulture degrees and MSc programmes. My own university runs a successful degree programme in Applied Plant Biology and a new MSc in Organic Horticulture at a newly established Centre for Organic Research in West Cork.

That being said, we still have to work hard to excite school-leavers to consider the option of studying plants rather than get swept away by the thrill of studying animals and other more "exciting" life forms.

In the UK, things are not so rosy in the garden (if you'll embrace the pun!). Plant science degrees (and even whole departments) are being closed by universities unwilling, it seems, to look at the bigger picture of a world increasingly reliant on plants and their products. Just ten universities in the UK continue to offer undergraduate degrees in plant science. The figures are shocking to anyone with even a cursory interest in issues like global warming, food security and biodiversity loss.

Although it might be unpopular to say it, could it be that school leavers are being turned off plants and the study of plant science because they associate it too closely with gardening? "Gardening" (and I use the inverted commas deliberately to denote the public perception of same) is something their grandparents do. It's something their parents do at the weekend. Are our prospective plant scientists of the future mentally scarred by having been dragged around boring garden centres every weekend of their childhood?

Perhaps gardening has an image problem. Perhaps making gardening, and also the study of plants "exciting" is just what we need.Gazeley's notion of relying on "delayed gratification" to attract people to plants clearly isn't working in the UK.

Whilst gardening is an extremely interesting, and yes, exciting pastime; "gardening" is perhaps in need of an image overhaul. While many gardeners do get excited about plants and how these amazing organisms work, there is no doubt that some are purely interested in the aesthetic quality of plants. That is not necessarily exciting to a younger audience.

The Aberystwyth-based plant ecologist Dr. John Warren, writing in 2010, sums it up nicely when he says students are often lured away from studying plants by the promise of animals which are "majestic, beautiful, cute and dynamic".

"I'm not arguing that zoologists are villainous Dr. Evils determined to destroy the Earth," writes Warren, "but that many of them are plant scientists that we have failed to inspire".

If James Wong gets excited about plants, good luck to him. We need more of that, not less. He's inspiring people.

Robert Boyle Summer School 2013

The 2nd Annual Robert Boyle Summer School will take place in beautiful Lismore, Co. Waterford from the 4th-7th of July and will feature a talk on the future of plant science.

A stimulating programme features speakers from around the world, panel discussions, a tour of Lismore Castle Gardens also a barbecue in the Castle Courtyard and a guided coach tour of West Waterford.

It will attract people with an interest in history, heritage, philosophy and science. According to a spokesperson: "It is not a science conference, but a gathering where people of all backgrounds can meet and consider the place of science in our lives".

The school celebrates the life, work and legacy of Robert Boyle who was born in Lismore Castle. Boyle was a central figure in the development of modern science and ranks alongside Galileo, Descartes and Newton whose work ushered in the modern age.

Prof. Liam Dolan

One of the highlights of the weekend will be a talk by Prof. Liam Dolan (Oxford) on advances in plant science and how we can help feed the world's ever growing population. This should be particularly topical given this week's speech by British Minister Owen Paterson in which he called for a renewed debate about GM crops in Britain.

Speaking to Communicate Science, founder of the Robert Boyle Summer School, Eoin Gill (WIT) said such an event dealing with science had been missing from the Irish calendar:

"For a long time Ireland has had summer schools celebrating many cultural figures / themes. One huge aspect of our culture that has been missing is science! The Robert Boyle Summer School now fills that gap and provides a place for scientist and non-scientists to meet and engage with science. Such an event is important for all of us concerned with public engagement with science and we need widespread support to continue".

More information on the summer school can be found at www.robertboyle.ie

Irish researcher is scicomm World champion

How's this for science communication? University College Cork postgraduate student Fergus McAuliffe has just won Famelab International at the Cheltenham Science festival. You can read the full details about Fergus's win here and watch his winning presentation below.

The Waterford Mortar

A recent trip to Waterford led to a visit to the excellent new Medieval Museum and Bishop's Palace museum. Together with Reginald's Tower they form a trio of sites which form Waterford's Museum of Treasures.

The Medieval Museum in particular is a stunning addition to the city's tourism offering and must rank as one of the best and most sensitively designed building in Ireland in recent years.

One object that caught my eye in the Bishop's Palace museum is this  bronze mortar used by a Waterford chemist to make up remedies. The mortar would have had an accompanying wooden pestle. Inscribed Michael Tonnery, Apothecary in Waterford 1707, the object was still in use in the 20th century in White's chemists, O'Connell Street.

The object was purchased by the museum with the assistance of Bausch and Lomb.

The Museum(s) of Treasures are certainly worth a visit if you're in Waterford. In particular, the Medieval Museum houses a set of pre-reformation vestments (the only to survive in Britain or Ireland) which are stunning examples of fifteenth century needlework.

Higgs Bison exisitence confirmed at Fota

Bison calf at Fota this week

A baby bison at Fota Wildlife Park in Ireland has been named 'Higgs', in honour (apparently) of Peter Higgs, the scientist who correctly, it now turns out, predicted the existence of a new particle - the Higgs boson.

The Higgs Bison was named after a public appeal for help in naming the calf by the park. The birth of the calf came in the same week that the calf's father Boris, the dominant male in the Fota group, died.

Willy Duffy head warden at Fota Wildlife Park said “it is great to see a calf born just as the summer is about to begin but it is also sad to be losing Boris as he has been with us since we introduced the herd of Bison in 1999”.

The baby bison is the 16th offspring from Boris which included 3 calves that were introduced into Komaneza Forest in Poland in 2008 as part of a reintroduction programme into the wild.

The Park has been part of a European-wide breeding programme ever since Bison first arrived in Cork in 1999. A significant number of calves have been born in the years since and many have been sent overseas to aid in programmes being developed elsewhere.

After a week of polling on the park's Facebook page, the animal was named alongside two other bison - now named Tyson and Bressie.

The news garnered some really positive reaction online after I tweeted about it:

The guys at @fotawildlife have named their new baby bison 'Higgs' which is just the greatest thing I've ever heard! #HiggsBison
— Eoin Lettice (@blogscience) May 25, 2013

95% of people won't get it, the other 5% will ask if the baby bison is hard to find. #HiggsBison
— Elizabeth Evans (@EClaireEvans) May 27, 2013

Well played @fotawildlife well played. But why hasn't #HiggsBison got a twitter account yet?
— Ed Franklin (@EJ_Franklin) May 27, 2013

Well played @fotawildlife well played. But why hasn't #HiggsBison got a twitter account yet?
— Ed Franklin (@EJ_Franklin) May 27, 2013

So @fotawildlife have named their baby bison 'Higgs'. You win, zookeeper people. You win. #HiggsBison
— Mike Agg (@Gammidgy) May 26, 2013

People are loving that we named our Bison "Higgs Bison" plus he has two half brothers called Bressie and Tyson #FWP30
— Fota Wildlife Park (@fotawildlife) May 26, 2013

Fascination of Plants Day 2013

'Plant Evolution' at JFK Arboretum, Ireland.

Today marks Fascination of Plants Day 2013 around the World. 

It's a day to get as many people as possible enthused about the importance of plants for agriculture, food production, horticulture, forestry, energy production, production of pharmaceuticals and the variety of other ways that plants impact on all our lives.

The celebration is spearheaded by the European Plant Science Organisation but, in just two years, has already spread beyond Europe and events this year will take place as far away as Australia and Zambia.

For a full list of events taking place around the World, see the Fascination of Plants website.

To mark Fascination of Plants Day, I've written a column for The Journal today on the importance of plants to our society and economy. Read it here