Audacity

In this lesson we were shown a program called audacity which is a software designed to record and edit sounds. We all had to create a pod cast using the tool pretending to be a news team. I thought it was a useful program however i did not enjoy using it as much as some of the other programs. When aspects however I did enjoy was that you could change your voices to sound completely different. Unfortunately our recording would upload however below is an example of someone using it. 

Science pod cast- review

Overall I enjoyed this project as it meant using an outdoor learning environment to inspire you to research something you wouldn't normally. I was shocked with many of the facts I found and didn't expect the world to rely so much purely on plants.

Strengths
I feel our strengths was that we researched something we were really interested in and it linked in strongly with the botanical gardens. I also feel we worked well as a group as we went to the botanical gardens again in our own time and did further research on other botanical gardens.

Weaknesses
I feel we struggled on recording as none of us were very familiar with using audacity to record and none of us our very experienced in using advanced technology.

Improvements
If we were to do this again I would have tried to understand how to use programs ore to make it sound more professional and use background music etc.

I have thoroughly enjoyed this module and would definitely choose it again as it is completely different to anything else I have done in uni.

Thank you Anne x

Science pod cast - lingonberrie

Lingonberry

Whilst researching different medicinal plants we found a new up and comming plant called the Lingonberry. This is a plant in which ts berries are meant to prevent weight gain.

Berries are an amazing group of fruits with a wide variety of chemical compounds that confer benefits to our bodies.  

Berries contain a group of chemicals called polyphenols which are potent antioxidants that help protect the fruits tender flesh from the sun’s radiation.  These polyphenols also work effectively within our bodies to neutralise free radicals from environmental factors such as pollutants and from the metabolism of foods that we ingest.  Everyone dreams of being able to eat chocolate and pizza all day without putting on a pound, and now researchers could have found a simple way of making this dream a reality

 

The results of a study carried out by the Lund University in Sweden were recently published in the peer reviewed Journal of Nutrition and Metabolism which proved the efficacy of lingonberries and their ability to prevent weight gain.

In this study, mice were fed with a high fat diet for 13 weeks which was intended to mimic the fatty western diet. They were divided into groups and 20% of their diet comprised of berries. Each group of mice was fed with a different berry which included raspberries, blackberries, acai berries and lingonberries.

After three months, the mice that were fed a high fat lingonberry diet had the best results. Their weight gain was no different to the subjects that were fed a low fat diet and additionally their blood sugar and insulin levels were low as well.

The researchers concluded that lingonberries prevent the harmful effects of a high fat diet and suggest that lingonberries could be useful in preventing obesity, aid in weight loss goals, and its related disorders. However, an obvious limitation is that the study has not looked at the effect of lingonberry consumption on body measures and health outcomes in humans and crucially the mice that were fed lingonberries still put on weight with the high fat diet, just not as much. And obviously as the berries were only tested on mice it isnt 100% reliable for humans. 

Further more this amazing discovery comes with the problem that certain individuals mainly being celebrities are most likely to become addicted to these miracle berries as a method of prevent weight gain.  Even though this new discovery and finding is exciting, it should not be seen as an excuse and interpreted as a license to eat an unhealthy diet as long as you add lingonberrries! So if anyone is trying to lose weight, relying on these lingonberries for weight control is not a wise or healthy approach.

Science pod cast- Any disadvantages

Disadvantages

Although everything we have spoken about so far seems to be positive, some people also have reasons as to why using plants as medicines can have a negative impact.

Alisa Price believes that Not all medicines benefit from being made using plants. She believes The manufacturing systems we currently are very high quality and perfectly adequate for the majority of medicines we need. The industry has invested enormous money and time into fine tuning the manufacturing of medicines, and we have all benefited in terms of product quality, safety and reliability.  Plant biotechnology is very new, and the manufacturing details have not yet been fine tuned.

Science pod cast- plant type research

Plants used for medicine

Gentiana lutea (Yellowgentian) is found in the mountains of central and southern Europe. Gentian root (which can be as thick as a person’s arm) has a long history of use as a herbal bitter in the treatment of digestive disorders. The root contains one of the bitterest substances known to science which stimulates the taste buds and brain reflexes to promote the secretion of saliva and gastric juices. As such it has been used as an appetite stimulant in the treatment of anorexia. It is said to be especially useful in states of exhaustion from chronic disease and in cases of debility or weakness of the digestive system; strengthening the human system by stimulating the liver, gall bladder and digestive system.

Rauvolfia serpentin

a (Indian snakeroot, Sarpaghanda) is member of the dogbane family, found in India, Pakistan and south east Asia But the plant is also an important healer, used for stomach disorders, snakebite and epilepsy. R. serpentine is also the source of the alkaloid resperine, which revolutionized the treatment of hypertension in the 1950s and is still commonly prescribed today. Chemically similar to serotonin, resperine was also used to treat severe mental illnesses due to its powerful sedative properties

Prunus africana (African cherry) is found in mountain tropical forests in central and southern Africa and Madagascar and has been used for centuries for its hard and durable timber as well as for the medicinal properties of its bark, which is used to treat malaria, fevers, kidney disease, urinary tract infections and more recently prostate enlargement (benign prostatic hyperplasia). Overall, the medicinal retail trade for P .africana is estimated to be US$220 million/year (WWF, 2001).

Common flowers and plants

Most of these plants and medicines are unfamiliar with us however there asre a lot more common ones in the UK such as:

The California Poppy which is an effective (anxiety reliever)

The blood flower is a type of tropical milkweed with toxic milky sap that is emetic (it makes you hurl). It’s also historically favored as a heart stimulant and worm expellent

Alfalfa which can treat morning sickness, nausea, kidney stones, kidney pain and urinary discomfort. It is a powerful diuretic and has a bit of stimulant power, helping to energize after a bout with illness. It’s a liver and bowel cleanser and long-term can help reduce cholesterol.

Plants you can find in your garden which can be used for medicines include:

Aloe vera: it contains various compounds that reduce inflammation, swelling, redness, pain and itching.”

Uses: For burns, cuts and minor abrasions; also as a mild laxative

Dandelion:  a nutritious healing herb that stimulates the flow of bile. It enhances the body’s ability to eliminate toxins.

Uses: As a diuretic (may help with PMS bloating), prevents gallstones and cleanses the liver. “Dandelion leaves contain noteworthy amounts of vitamin C and beta-carotene and are considered an antioxidant that help sets the stage for preventing many diseases,” says Cervone.

Lemon balm: has a calming effect on heart palpitations and an agitated state of mind.

Uses: Soothes stomach, calms nerves.

Lavender: used in both medicine and cosmetics.

Uses: As a sedative, stress reliever, to restore calm and relieve tension.

Parsley: Parsley leaves, roots and seeds all contain an oil with significant diuretic and mild laxative properties. Parsley also inhibits the secretion of histamines, a compound produced by the body that causes allergies, hives and hay fever.

Uses: Breath freshener, allergy relief, tummy troubles.

Science Pod cast- medicinal plants

MedicinalPlants

Simply, plants equal life. They are the primary producers that sustain all other life forms. They regulate air and water quality, shape ecosystems and control the climate. They provide food, medicine, clothes, shelter and the raw materials from which innumerable other products are made. These benefits are widely recognised but poorly understood. Because of this plants are both a vital part of the world’s biological diversity and an essential economic resource for human existence. Yet plant extinctions are occurring at a rate unmatched in geological history, leaving ecosystems incomplete. Current extinction rates are at least 100 to 1,000 times higher than natural background rates, with a quarter of the world’s coniferous trees known to be in jeopardy and as many as 15,000 medicinal plants under threat. Whilst the extinction of a species is the ultimate loss, the process of extinction itself has serious consequences for local ecosystems. Plant to plant interactions effect both resource availability and habitat structure, and play an important role in mediating the responses of natural systems meaning the loss of any one species weakens an ecosystem’s ability to adapt in a rapidly changing world.

 Medicinal plants have been used by mankind for thousands of years; their use is as old as humanity itself. The range of species used and their scope for healing is vast. Cures as yet undiscovered may exist in plants as yet undescribed. Currently, it is estimated that the number of higher plant species used worldwide for medicinal purposes is more than 50,000.

Science pod cast research

After visiting the botanical gardens and asking ourselves all these questions we continued to research the need for these plants and their main uses. The result we found was that around 80% of the world’s population depends directly on plant based medicines for health care and because of this many botanical gardens play a large role in medical plant study and research, cultivation and conservation.

 Medicinal plants harvested from the wild Provide both a relief from illness and a source of income, over 70,000 plant species are thought to be medicinal.

Loss of habitat combined with over-harvesting threatens the survival of many of these plant species. Luckily one of the Botanic gardens main jobs is to ensure their conservation.

 The first botanicl gardens originated in Europe in the sixteenth centry. The reason for this was the cultivation and study of medicinal plants - at a time when medicine and botany were essentially the same discipline. The tradition of cultivating and displaying medicinal plants has been continued by many botanic gardens across the world which is shown by BGCI study in 1998 highlighting the medicinal plant collections of 480 botanic gardens.

 Botanic gardens provide a permanent location around which an infrastructure can develop. Around the world, they have become centres for the research and study of disciplines as diverse as taxonomy, ecology, agronomy, horticulture, ethnobotany and habitat restoration, all of which inform medicinal plant conservation.

Botanic gardens have a long-standing connection to medicinal plants in particular, since the sole purpose of all early botanic gardens was to grow and study medicinal plants. They are inherently well-placed to respond to the very specific local conservation needs of medicinal plants and the people who rely on them for health and livelihood in a particular region. Moreover, they are probably the most important agencies for the conservation of native medicinal plants, since plants are not often the priority of other conservation bodies and government agencies related to agriculture pay little attention to those species of undetermined economic use. BGCI maintains the PlantSearch database which records data on plants in botanic garden collections. As of August 2007 the PlantSearch database held details on over 2,540 botanic gardens, 681 of which have uploaded their species data, totalling 505,000 records of approximately 140,000 different taxa. The database is available for public use, although garden addresses are only accessible after requesting further information from the garden itself, due to the valuable nature of some of the plants held.

Science- Pod cast inspiration

Botanical Gardens

After visiting the Botanical gardens we decided to base our proect on it. They have collection of over 8000 different plant varieties, spread across 560 acres of beautiful countryside. Along with the world’s largest single spanned glasshouse, designed by Lord Foster, that has the best display of mediterranean climate zone plants in the Northern hemisphere. Their mission is to inspire, educate and conserve all these beautiful sprecies of plants.

When we were in the botanical gardens it got us thinking about what we were seeing and the reasons for it. Some questions we wanted answered were:

·         Why grow so many amazing  plants?

·         Why so many different plants

·         Are they intentional

·         What are they used for

·         Do they all have different purpose

·         Do they grow them there to preserve or use

·         Do they grow them from the beginning